Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General-Secretary. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man . . . more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky . . . it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.⁸⁰

Lenin’s proposal to remove Stalin as general-secretary was not as drastic as it might appear in retrospect since the post was still predominantly administrative. Being relieved of such a burden might even have suited Stalin, as long as he remained one of the party’s top leaders.

Lenin’s testament provoked little more than a storm in a political teacup. Identifying Trotsky as the main danger to their own leadership ambitions, Stalin’s Politburo comrades backed the nascent dictator and efforts to use the testament to whip up opposition to Stalin among party activists did not get very far. Stalin offered on more than one occasion to accede to Lenin’s wishes and resign as the party’s general-secretary, but there was never any question his resignation would be accepted.

Stephen Kotkin is convinced that Stalin found the Lenin Testament episode profoundly psychologically disturbing and harboured a deep sense of victimhood and self-pity.⁸¹

Stalin may have been peeved by the testament and irritated by Lenin’s words, but there is no evidence the episode had any lasting impact on his psychological make-up. Stalin was not the self-pitying type, did not see himself as a victim and remained loyal to Lenin’s memory. When he commented on Lenin’s remarks about him at the central committee plenum in July 1927, he was unrepentant. Having quoted in full the testament’s passage about his rudeness, Stalin said: ‘Indeed, I am rude, Comrades, to those who rudely and perfidiously destroy and split the party. I have not hidden this, and still do not.’⁸²

Stalin was well placed to emerge as Lenin’s successor. After Lenin’s death in January 1924 he gradually established himself as the pre-eminent party leader. He helped create a Lenin cult and projected himself as Lenin’s most faithful pupil. He positioned himself as a centrist in the various policy disputes that beset the party. He used the patronage of official appointments to gather support. He paid attention to the needs and interests of regional party officials. Most importantly, he gave meaning to the lives of party officials and activists by prioritising the construction of socialism at home over the spread of revolution abroad.

When the Bolsheviks took power they expected their revolution to be bolstered by revolutions in more advanced countries. The failure of the revolution to spread abroad prompted Stalin to fashion a new doctrine – Socialism in one country – which proclaimed that Soviet Russia could build a socialist state that would safeguard both the Russian Revolution and the future world revolution. ‘Internationalism’ was reformulated to serve the interests of the one successful revolution. ‘An internationalist’, said Stalin in 1927, ‘is one who is ready to defend the USSR without reservation, without wavering, unconditionally; for the USSR is the base of the world revolutionary movement, and this revolutionary movement cannot be defended and promoted unless the USSR is defended.’⁸³

Stalin’s own explanation for his success in the factional battles of the 1920s was that he had secured the support of middle-ranking party and state officials: ‘Why did we prevail over Trotsky and the rest?’ he asked in 1937. ‘Trotsky, as we know, was the most popular man in our country after Lenin. Bukharin, Zinoviev, Rykov, Tomsky were all popular. We were little known. . . . But the middle cadres supported us, explained our positions to the masses. Meanwhile Trotsky completely ignored those cadres.’⁸⁴

Stalin’s workload as general-secretary was enormous and continued to grow as the party-state bureaucracy expanded. The paper trail of reports, resolutions and stenograms passing through his office was endless, as were the frequent visitors, and the numerous meetings he had to attend. But he proved a highly capable administrator, one measure of his success being the scale of the task he faced: ‘The General-Secretary had to establish a system that tracked the skills and experience of hundreds of thousands of officials . . . to organise 350,000 mostly poorly qualified . . . “staff”, who together had to bring the world’s largest country, with a population of almost 140 million, out of an appalling economic crisis amidst serious political divisions.’⁸⁵