Stalin. Part 5: How Koba became Stalin
Having disagreements with Stalin on many points of the revolutionary struggle, Lenin listened to him in the main thing - when it came to survival. Lenin could not help but feel gratitude and trust in a person, albeit devoid of intelligence, but indispensable in resolving issues of life and death.
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1. Going underground again
The Civil War rolled in waves. In July 1917, the antiwar Bolshevik uprising broke out. The street, organized by Stalin, corrected the decisions of the pro-Menshevik congress, inflicting a crushing blow on its authority. People did not want to go to the front. The demonstrators demanded a peaceful transfer of all power to the Soviets. In response, government troops shot the demonstrators, Lenin was declared a German spy, commanders at the front were ordered to shoot at retreating, the death penalty was restored, and Bolshevik newspapers were closed. Lenin was ordered to surrender to the authorities voluntarily. The Bolsheviks were defeated. I had to go underground.
Trotsky, Lunacharsky and other romantic associates of Lenin advised the leader to surrender in order to expose the anti-people government in an open trial. Stalin was categorically against: "Juncker will not be taken to prison, they will be killed on the way" [1]. From the memoirs of a former member of the State Duma, V. N. Polovtsev, it is known that the officer sent to detain Lenin asked his superiors how to get this gentleman - whole or in pieces. In response, it was hinted to him that sometimes the criminals make attempts to escape [2]. Stalin could not hear this conversation, he simply ensured Lenin's transfer to a safe place, in Razliv, having previously shaved off Ilyich's well-known beard. Having disagreements with Stalin on many points of the revolutionary struggle, Lenin listened to him in the main thing - when it came to survival.
Lenin and Zinoviev in a hut in Razliv, Kamenev and Trotsky are sitting. Stalin is the link between Lenin and the Central Committee. Unknown among the masses and invisible in the political arena, he is again at the top of the party leadership. Lenin could not help but feel gratitude and trust in a person, albeit devoid of intelligence, but indispensable in resolving issues of life and death. Lenin's instructions to Stalin personally from that moment on became permanent.
Despite the crushing defeat in July, the underground Bolsheviks did their job. No protocols of this activity have survived, but already on July 26 the VI Congress of the party opened, where JV Stalin reported on the political situation. And this situation was such that Bolsheviks dominated in all district councils of Petrograd. In just three months, their number increased from 80 to 240 thousand. After the congress, Stalin again entered the Central Committee, became the editor-in-chief of Pravda, and was elected to the Military Revolutionary Center of the impending uprising.
2. Uprising
Stalin was absent from the morning meeting in Smolny on October 24. It was suspected that he had withdrawn himself or was hiding with the Alliluyevs, where 39-year-old Koba developed a relationship with his future wife, 16-year-old Nadia. All speculation. Where exactly Stalin was on the eve of the October Revolution and what exactly he was doing, it is unlikely that it will be possible to establish. Stalin's activities of this period can be traced only by indirect indications, in not a single document the name of the "official on special assignments" [3] is mentioned.
Strategic reconnaissance is the specific role of the olfactory advisor. It is known that from the very first day of the creation of the Cheka, Stalin supervised its work. In the evening of October 24, the cadets, who appeared at the editorial office of the Rabochy Put newspaper, were disarmed by a detachment of the Red Guard and escorted to the Peter and Paul Fortress. They were expected at the editorial office, they were aware of their true intentions (to arrest Lenin). This was the conspicuous result of Stalin's unnoticed work.
Immediately after the October armed uprising, at a meeting of the II Congress of Soviets, the government of the new Russia was elected - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK). Lenin presided, Trotsky became commissar for foreign affairs, Stalin became commissar for nationalities. An indicative and very systemic appointment to the most dangerous direction for the internal unity of a multinational state. In this direction, preserving the integrity of a single state, JV Stalin will work all his life.
Within the quartet, Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov, Trotsky developed the most trusting relations between Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky. However, going on vacation in December 1917, Lenin left Stalin for himself, and not Trotsky, as one might assume. The irreconcilability of the two opposites was clearly expressed, probably, in the most biased biography of Stalin by Trotsky. But even here, in his book about Stalin, Trotsky could not help but note that after the October armed uprising “Stalin became a recognized member of the headquarters of the party, which the masses were carrying to power. He ceased to be Koboi, finally becoming Stalin”[4].
3. The audacity and routine of a new life
Winning an armed uprising is half the battle. Power must be retained. The army did not obey the Bolsheviks, the headquarters did not carry out the orders of the Council of People's Commissars and did not want to negotiate an armistice with the Germans. The army commanders were opposed to the Soviets, Kerensky went to war against Petrograd, in the city itself a junker uprising was brewing.
At this difficult time, Lenin came up with a brilliant tactical move: on the radio, over the head of the commander-in-chief, to address the soldiers with an appeal to surround the generals and stop hostilities, then contact the enemy soldiers and invite them to take the cause of peace into their own hands. It was daring. But Lenin knew that peace was the main lack of a belligerent people. “It was a leap into the unknown. But Lenin was not afraid of this leap. On the contrary, he went to meet him, because he knew that the army wants peace, and it will conquer the world, sweeping away all and all obstacles on the way to peace”[5]. The urethral psychic, living in the future, strives forward. The natural property of the urethral leader to give up on shortages ensures the advancement of the whole flock into the future.
The usually imperturbable Stalin cannot contain his admiration for the leader. It was obvious that retaining power required a completely different understanding of statehood. Stalin was entrusted with creating a new "matter of statehood" [6]. He will be sent to the most difficult areas, requiring strong political will, remarkable organizational talent and masterly ability to use power. All these properties of Stalin's nature developed beautifully from the whip of the state of emergency of Soviet Russia, which, according to Churchill, was "a state without a nation, an army without a country, a religion without God."
Continue reading.
Other parts:
Stalin. Part 1: Olfactory Providence over Holy Russia
Stalin. Part 2: Furious Koba
Stalin. Part 3: Unity of opposites
Stalin. Part 4: From Permafrost to April Theses
Stalin. Part 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Stalin. Part 7: Ranking or the Best Disaster Cure
Stalin. Part 8: Time to Collect Stones
Stalin. Part 9: USSR and Lenin's testament
Stalin. Part 10: Die for the Future or Live Now
Stalin. Part 11: Leaderless
Stalin. Part 12: We and They
Stalin. Part 13: From plow and torch to tractors and collective farms
Stalin. Part 14: Soviet Elite Mass Culture
Stalin. Part 15: The last decade before the war. Death of Hope
Stalin. Part 16: The last decade before the war. Underground temple
Stalin. Part 17: Beloved Leader of the Soviet People
Stalin. Part 18: On the eve of the invasion
Stalin. Part 19: War
Stalin. Part 20: By Martial Law
Stalin. Part 21: Stalingrad. Kill the German!
Stalin. Part 22: Political Race. Tehran-Yalta
Stalin. Part 23: Berlin is taken. What's next?
Stalin. Part 24: Under the Seal of Silence
Stalin. Part 25: After the War
Stalin. Part 26: The Last Five Year Plan
Stalin. Part 27: Be part of the whole
[1] D. Volkogonov. JV Stalin, political portrait. T. 1, p. 71
[2] Ibid.
[3] That is what Trotsky called Stalin.
[4] L. Trotsky. Stalin
[5] I. Stalin
[6] S. Rybas
