Stalin. Part 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Having become Lenin's informal deputy for emergency issues, Stalin clearly demonstrates his ability to confidently build the structure of the new Soviet statehood in an extremely difficult situation.
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The enemies of the revolution concentrated forces on the Don, England and France, relying on counterrevolutionary nationalist aspirations within the country, sought to break Russia into zones of influence. The Ukrainian Rada blocked the Soviet troops marching to the Don against the Whites. The opposition to the civil war was gaining strength. At this time, Stalin was engaged in his direct duties as a commissioner for nationalities and carried out special instructions from the party. Having become Lenin's informal deputy for emergency issues, Stalin clearly demonstrates his ability to confidently build the structure of the new Soviet statehood in an extremely difficult situation.
1. The national question at the forefront of international politics
Dealing with a seemingly internal national question, that is, Ukraine and the Caucasus, Stalin was at the forefront of the international political struggle. Opposing the collapse and division of a half-dead country is the main task of the moment, the military might of an indivisible state is the only condition for survival in it. All efforts of the olfactory JV Stalin were directed towards this. Not firing up the ideas of an imminent world revolution and not hoping for the support of the European proletariat, he more than once proved to be a greater realist than the armchair thinker Karl Marx and the leaders of the revolution, Lenin and Trotsky, who were looking into the distant future. Universities of survival and management of people underground, invaluable experience in leadership work - these are the trump cards of the sober-minded practitioner Stalin against theorists, romantics and dreamers who suddenly found themselves in power. It was impossible to rely on bourgeois specialists. A new type of workers was required - uncompromising, able to suppress the will of individual people by the collective necessity of survival. Such a worker, no doubt, was Stalin.
In response to Trotsky's fiery appeals to the German proletariat to support the people of Russia who rebelled against bloody imperialism, Germany, frightened by the world revolution, signed a separate peace with Ukraine, which exacerbated the split in Russia. Germany began to control vast territories up to the Black Sea and the Don. On December 13, Stalin publishes in Kiev newspapers an article "To the Ukrainians of the Home Front and Front": there is and cannot be a conflict between the Ukrainian and Russian people, there is a conflict between the Council of People's Commissars and the Rada. At the largest Kiev military plant "Arsenal", an uprising of workers against the "bourgeois nationalists" organized by Stalin breaks out, and it quickly spreads to the entire city. Gaydamak Petliura take Arsenal by storm. Soviet troops take Kiev. Germany introduces troops to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in the Central Committee itself there is no unity on the most important question of war and peace. People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs Trotsky, confident in the approach of a world revolution, believes that peace with Germany cannot be signed, the war must be stopped so that the German soldiers follow the example of the Russian proletariat and take power into their own hands. Bukharin, Dzerzhinsky, Uritsky and others - for the revolutionary war until the final victory of the world revolution.
Stalin does not believe in the world revolution, his opinion: to conclude an immediate peace and deal with the internal affairs of the country. This meant accepting the German occupation of vast Russian territories. Lenin is for delaying peace by all possible means until the Germans resume hostilities. As a result, at the negotiations in Brest, Trotsky, having exceeded his authority, refuses to sign a predatory peace with Germany, declares that Russia will withdraw from the war and the disbandment of the army.
Recovering from such an unexpected demarche of the new Russia, Germany resumes hostilities. The Germans take Zhitomir, Gomel, Dorpat, Revel, Mogilev, they bombed Petrograd. Lenin demands the conclusion of an immediate peace. Not until the world revolution, to preserve its cradle - Soviet Russia. Trotsky still hopes for the action of the German proletariat, he is against it. Lenin wins by one vote. The capital moved from Petrograd to Moscow. On March 3, 1918, peace was signed with Germany. The territory of Russia in comparison with 1914 has decreased by 2 million square kilometers.
2. Food dictator
Soviet Russia is faced with truly unattainable tasks. They can be solved only at the cost of incredible efforts. Not all leaders understand this. Lenin is outraged by the beautiful nature and manilovism of some; he increasingly speaks of the need for tough measures, dictatorship, and terror. There is no such thing as a good revolution. By signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia became outside the law for the allies, which means that you can do anything with it. In the conditions of absolute lawlessness towards Russia by its former allies, the social democratic style of leadership did not work. At the 7th Congress, the party officially becomes communist and declares the transition to an open dictatorship.
The situation in the South is dire. The country's food and fuel base is in the hands of enemies. The Germans are trying to cut off Ukraine from the Center in order to prevent the creation of a customs union between Soviet Russia and Ukraine. The peasants who have already received the land do not show interest in the new government. It is impossible to establish a normal exchange of goods. All around chaos and anarchy. Stalin, "who played the role of an official on responsible assignments under Lenin," [1] went to Tsaritsyn to manage the food business. He is endowed with extraordinary powers, which he uses as much as possible to overcome the "grain bacchanalia and speculation."
This is what he telegraphed to Lenin: “I achieved a rationing system and fixed prices in Tsaritsyn. I am forced to appoint special commissioners who are already introducing order, despite the protests of the collegia. The commissars are opening a bunch of steam locomotives in places the colleges don't know about. Eight or more trains can be run on the Tsaritsyn-Moscow line a day. Was it really impossible to do this without Stalin? Did not want. There were other desires - to steal on the sly, appropriate, cash in. In a situation of intense pressure from the landscape, many for the sake of their own survival abandoned cultural and moral restrictions and slipped into the skin archetype of theft. To end the food crisis in the country, it was necessary to structure chaos in the shortest possible time by launching ranking mechanisms, which required a strong olfactory sensory. Stalin naturally took his place here.
Concentrating on himself the collective hatred of the local party bosses, old military experts, white defectors and wealthy peasants, the “food dictator” Stalin with cold-blooded contempt eradicated theft, drunkenness, looting and robbery: “Commodity Commissioner Zaitsev was arrested for fraud and speculation. Tell Schmidt not to send any more crooks. People's Commissar Stalin. Tsaritsyn. June 7, 1918.
Young wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva was next to Stalin at this difficult time. As a little girl, he saved her from death, pulled her out of the water. Since then, Nadia looked at the mysterious Soso with awe, his attention flattered, the strength of his personality overwhelmed. Nadezhda Alliluyeva worked in her husband's secretariat, there was no greater authority for her.
3. Business time, interference - execution
The solution to the food problem is impossible without the help of the military. When creating the Red Army, Trotsky relied on former officers of the tsarist army, there were simply no others. They were suitable for a war with an external enemy, but not for a civil one. The betrayal of the former tsarist colonel Nosovich and a number of other officers of the tsarist army during the siege of Tsaritsyn did not go unnoticed by Stalin. Stalin, suspicious of the old military experts, is again in conflict with Trotsky, who was on their side. Having not received the orders he needed from Trotsky, Stalin informs Lenin: “I myself will overthrow those commanders who are ruining the business without formalities. This is how the interests of the case tell me, and, of course, the absence of a piece of paper from Trotsky will not stop me. Doesn't ask permission, just states.
The village, calmed by the receipt of land, entered the Civil War by food detachments. The last was taken from the muscular peasantry, the resistance was fierce. In 1918 alone, there were 258 peasant uprisings in 32 provinces of Russia [2], a real peasant war. It was only possible to solve food appropriation issues with the help of the military, but many former tsarist officers did not want to participate in this filthy hell. Stalin "without formalities" ordered the arrest of all employees of the district headquarters and put them on a barge. In this floating prison the officers, again "without formalities", were shot, the barge with the corpses was sunk. Trotsky miraculously manages to save one General Snesarev. He will be arrested again on Stalin's orders only in 1930, Stalin will mercifully replace the execution by 10 years of exile in Solovki, their General A. E. Snesarev, professor,an orientalist and ethnographer will not survive.
There are many cases when Stalin, having come to power, punished the leaders who escaped punishment in the Civil War. This is explained not only by rancor and vindictiveness, as is commonly believed. The olfactory psychic does not accept mistakes in principle, the animal instinct is unmistakable and gets rid of everything that does not guarantee the survival of the whole. Having shown once his inadequacy to the situation had no hope of forgiveness. Not feeling the lengths of time, the olfactory person at the unconscious level does not perceive such time-stretched processes as repentance and correction. Good for business, useless for expense.
The experience of the Civil War, with its disorganization, and often the direct betrayal of disguised White Guards, remained forever in Stalin's memory as the most effective way to achieve the desired political result through punitive actions. With the death of Lenin, it became impossible to find a worthy counterbalance to Stalin's animal egoism.
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 5: How Koba became Stalin
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] L. Trotsky
[2] S. Rybas
