Stalin: A Biography

Stalin was not a certifiable psychotic and never behaved in such a way as to be incapable of carrying out his public duties. As a family man, a guest and a friend he was crude. But his behaviour was seldom so bizarre until the late 1930s that others failed to find him companionable. He wrote poems as a young man and went on singing at dinner parties into his old age. He sent money to his boyhood friends in Georgia. There are those who want the ‘monsters’ in history to be represented as a species unto themselves. This is a delusion. Individuals like Stalin are thankfully few and far between in the recorded past — and without the October Revolution there would have been one fewer: Stalin’s emergence from exile and obscurity on to a worldwide stage of power, fame and impact would have been impossible if his party had not made the October Revolution and bolted together the institutional, procedural and doctrinal scaffolding which he was to exploit. Such individuals, when they have appeared, have usually displayed congenial ‘ordinary’ features even while carrying out acts of unspeakable abusiveness. History seldom gives unambiguous lessons, but this is one of them.

GLOSSARY

All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) — The communist party’s name from 1952.

Bolsheviks — The faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party which was formed by Lenin in 1903 and consolidated as a separate party in 1917.

Central Committee — The supreme party body elected at Party Congresses to run the party until the next such Congress.

Central Control Commission — Party body established in 1920 to supervise the fair administration of the communist party.

Cheka — The Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage.

Cominform — International organ founded in 1947 supposedly to facilitate consultation among communist parties of eastern Europe and France and Italy. In fact it was used to impose Moscow’s will on those parties.

Comintern — Abbreviation for the Communist International.

Communist International — The international organ founded in Petrograd in March 1919 to co-ordinate and direct the entire world communist movement. It was disbanded in 1943.

Council of Ministers — The successor organ of government to the Council of People’s Commissars, set up in 1946.

Council of People’s Commissars — The government established by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Usually known by the acronym Sovnarkom.

Democratic Centralists — Faction of Bolsheviks, formed in 1919, which called for the restoration of internal democratic procedures to the party.

GPU — The name of the Cheka from 1921. The full name is Main Political Administration.

GUGB — The Russian acronym of the Main Administration of State Security: this was the departmental name of the OGPU after its incorporation in the NKVD in 1934.

Gulag — Properly the acronym should be GUlag; it is short for the Main Administration of Camps.

Ilich — One of Lenin’s nicknames, used by his political associates.

Kadets — Acronym of the Constitutional-Democrats. This was the main Russian liberal party and was formed by Pavel Milyukov in 1905.

Koba — One of Stalin’s youthful nicknames which he continued to use as a Marxist militant and leader before 1917.

Kuomintang — Chinese nationalist movement led by Chiang Kai-shek.

Left Opposition — Bolshevik faction led by Trotski from 1923 committed to accelerating industrial growth and to de-bureaucratising the party.

Lenin — Main pseudonym of the Bolshevik leader. He was christened Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov.

Mensheviks — Faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, initially led by Martov and founded at the Second Party Congress in 1903.

MGB — Ministry of State Security, the successor organisation to the NKGB from 1946.

MVD — Ministry of Internal Affairs, the successor organisation to the NKVD from 1946.

NKGB — People’s Commissariat of State Security. This was the name of the security police agency; it was designated thus in 1941 and again in 1943–6.

NKVD — The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs established after the October Revolution. In 1934 it incorporated the OGPU.

OGPU — Successor organ of the GPU and Cheka from 1924. It formally united all the GPUs of the various Soviet republics when the USSR came into existence. The full name in English is the United Main Political Administration.

Orgburo — Internal body of the Party Central Committee with responsibility for organisational leadership of the party in the period between meetings of the Central Committee.

Politburo — Internal committee of the Party Central Committee, empowered to direct the party in the period between meetings of the Central Committee.