Stalin: A Biography

Stalin in person, of course, was not credible as a Russian. He knew he looked, sounded and behaved in a ‘southern’ manner. He revered Georgian literary classics. He would never be Russian. And, contrary to what is widely suggested, he did not really try.¹¹ If he had really desired to de-Georgianise his political profile among Bolsheviks he would have ceased to write on the ‘national question’. Jews like Zinoviev and Kamenev wanted to be known as internationalists and hardly ever drew attention to their ethnic ancestry. Stalin too wished to be regarded as an internationalist; he also aimed to be taken seriously in Russian socialist politics. But he continued to urge the party to promote the interests of the non-Russians under a future socialist administration. His 1913 booklet The National Question and Social-Democracy was to do much to raise his reputation in the party; it also solidified his relationship with Lenin, who described him in a letter to the writer Maxim Gorki as ‘the wonderful Georgian’.¹² What is clear is that Stalin had long ceased to make a special case for the Georgians in his statements on the national question. When he wrote or said anything, he treated them no better or worse than other non-Russian peoples. He offered his co-nationals no prospect of preferment, while himself remaining a Georgian in appearance, accent, demeanour and residual culture.

This meant little to Stalin as he made his way under guard to Narym. He stayed for a few days in Kolpashevo, a village where several leading Bolsheviks were living in exile. They included Mikhail Lashevich and Ivan Smirnov. Stalin also came across his Bolshevik friend Semën Surin as well as his Bailov Prison acquaintance Semën Vereshchak: he had supper with them, recuperated and then set out north-east along the River Ob to his assigned destination in Narym.¹³ It was not quite the worst place of exile in the Russian Empire. Narym, unlike towns at a more northerly latitude, lay just within the zone of agriculture. But conditions could have been better. The winter was bleak. Economic life largely revolved around hunting and fishing. Contact with St Petersburg was infrequent and subject to police surveillance.

Fellow Central Committee member Yakov Sverdlov greeted Stalin in Narym and offered him a room. They did not get on well. Even the agreement on housework broke down. Whereas Sverdlov aimed at a modicum of order, Stalin was slovenly and selfish. They had agreed to fetch the post, and whoever stayed behind was expected to tidy the house. Years later they compared memories about how Stalin got out of this arrangement:¹⁴

Stalin: I liked to creep out for the post on [Sverdlov’s day to do it]. Sverdlov had to look after the house whether he liked it or not — keep the stove alight and do the cleaning… How many times I tried to trick you and get out of the housework. I [also] used to wake up when it was my turn and lie still as if asleep.

Sverdlov: And do you think I didn’t notice? I noticed only too well.

Although Sverdlov laughed good-naturedly, he had not thought it pleasant at the time. Stalin’s behaviour was doubly selfish. Whoever walked to the post office would meet up with other comrades and gain a respite from the dreariness of exile. Everyone found the conditions depressing and Stalin’s egocentricity was widely resented.

The two of them planned to flee from Narym to resume clandestine political activity. They were encouraged in this by the Central Committee in Kraków. Two escape ‘bureaux’ existed, one in Kolpashevo, the other in Narym. Sverdlov made the first attempt but was caught near Tomsk. Then Lashevich made a dash, followed by Stalin and Sverdlov on 1 September.¹⁵ It was an eventful trip. They had devised a clever scheme requiring the diminutive Sverdlov to hide in a laundry basket. Stalin was accosted by a gendarme who made a move to examine the basket by pushing his bayonet into it. Stalin got him to desist by bribing him. This story, told by Stalin three decades later, cannot be verified.¹⁶ But it is not implausible. Fugitive revolutionaries regularly exploited inefficiency and venality among the Imperial agencies of law and order.