Stalin. Part 9: USSR and Lenin's testament
“Stalin is too rude, and this defect, which is quite tolerable in the environment and in communication between us, communists, becomes intolerable in the post of general secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to consider the method of transferring Stalin from this place and to appoint to this place another person who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin's only one advantage, namely more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to his comrades …"
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
By the spring of 1922, the young Soviet republic began negotiations with the West on further relations. The RSFSR spoke at the negotiations in The Hague and Genoa on behalf of the national republics - the Ukrainian SSR, the BSSR and the Transcaucasian Federation. On October 6, a commission began to work on the creation of a new united state, about the form of which Lenin and Stalin had disagreements.
1. Autonomy or Equality?
Stalin insisted on the entry of the republics into the federation not as equal and independent, but only on the basis of autonomy, that is, without the right to secede. He wrote: "It is necessary to complete the process of rapprochement of the republics by uniting them into one federation, merging the military, economic whole and foreign relations into one whole, while maintaining autonomy for the republics in internal affairs." Autonomy in internal affairs could be safely neglected before the primacy of the central government; in Stalin's interpretation, autonomy was just a beautiful word.
Olfactory Stalin strove to unite the republics into one whole and to preserve this whole due to the complete subordination of the central government to the SNK. This proposal was met with hostility by Lenin. The leader of the world proletariat was for the union of equal republics, he feared that the union republics would feel humiliated by the imperial thinking of the center. V. I. believed that each republic should have the right to secession, which, in fact, happened in 1991.
Stalin could not agree with the "national liberalism" of Ilyich, due to a serious illness having a poor idea of what is happening, for example, in Georgia, allowing the Ottoman Bank to open its branches in Tiflis, thereby contributing to the strengthening of the Turkish lira. Stalin quite unceremoniously pointed out their place to the Georgian nationalists, it came to assault. Of course, it was not Stalin himself who beat Mdivani, but Ordzhonikidze's blow, with the testimony and support of Dzerzhinsky, greatly upset Ilyich, who saw imperial snobbery in this gesture of intolerance for nationalist separatism.
Stalin was for the inviolable central power of the future Union, only in it he saw the guarantee of the strength of the new unitary state. A single ranking tool was also needed - finance. On November 30, 1922, Stalin made a report "On the Union of Republics", where he took into account all Lenin's wishes. The speaker paid special attention to the unified budget of the USSR. It is difficult to say what development history would have received if the union republics, according to the Constitution, did not have the right to secede. How they exercised this right is well known.
The USSR was created, the controversy subsided, and the state of health of V. I. Ilyich began to dictate "Letter to the Congress" and other notes, later called "Testament."
2. Lenin's testament is systematic
For the first time, Lenin felt ill in March 1922. Then he moved to Gorki, and on May 30, immediately after the first stroke, he summoned Stalin to him. The agreement that, if Ilyich was paralyzed, Stalin would give him poison, had existed for a long time. The younger sister of the leader M. A. Ulyanov knew about this, and her memories are well known. The audience lasted five minutes, after which Stalin left, and then went back to the patient and tried to console him: the doctors believe there is hope. "Are you disingenuous?" Ilyich asked. Stalin was not cunning. I understood that every day of Vladimir Ilyich's life is invaluable for the country, its integrity, its survival.
Until October 1922, Lenin was in Gorki, where Stalin often visited him, drew up bulletins on health, in fact - guarded, having received the apt nickname "Cerberus of Ilyich." Lenin knew that his brain was dying. It is monstrous day after day to be deprived of the ability to move and lose reason, when the daily needs of the country demand the most active participation, and the motley group of successors is torn by contradictions. Vladimir Ilyich did the impossible, tried to catch up with the most important things: to warn against the inevitable, to settle conflicts, to put the characters of the coming events in their places. He, like no one, understood that any mistake now threatens a big disaster in the future.
The great politician, thinker and revolutionary, unique in his mental eight-vector Lenin saw through and understood each of his closest circle. Stalin and Trotsky worried the leader most of all. Attempts to reconcile them failed. Outstanding workers themselves, Trotsky and Stalin, were in a deep inner conflict due to the opposite properties of the mental. The "military leader", the urethral Trotsky, indispensable during the offensive period of the Civil War, became a serious threat to the unity of the party during the period of peaceful construction. The properties of the olfactory Stalin, on the contrary, became more and more in demand by the new landscape, his power grew. Lenin was not sure that Stalin would be able to use power "with caution."
In his famous "Letter to the Congress" of December 24, 1922, Ilyich tries to characterize each of his possible successors. It turned out that no one was completely suitable for this role, but of all Stalin was the most suitable. Lenin could not admit this in plain text. He really feared the concentration of all power in the hands of the olfactory Stalin. The place of the olfactory person is with the corresponding urethral leader, who will not be there with the departure of Lenin, which means that there will not be an adequate recoil force capable of balancing the colossal power of receiving the olfactory Koba. Therefore, Lenin adds to the letter: “Stalin is too rude, and this defect, which is quite tolerable in the environment and in communication between us, communists, becomes intolerable in the post of general secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to consider the method of transferring Stalin from this place and to appoint to this place another person who in all other respects differs from Comrade. Stalin's only one advantage, namely more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to his comrades …"
What did Ilyich really say about Stalin? Let's try to decipher his message systematically: “Stalin has a certain set of mental properties, which is perceived by others as rudeness. This causes understandable hostility in people. The only one who could tolerate Stalin is a developed urethral. He is not among you. What will the preservation of the post of general secretary lead to? Moreover, this position will greatly contribute to the accumulation of hatred and fear on the figure of Stalin. This will significantly complicate his work. To preserve himself and the flock, Stalin will have to go to extreme measures, he, by his nature surviving at all costs, simply will have no other choice. Throw in a hostile imperialist encirclement and you have a concentration of hatred capable of tearing this world apart, or at leastunleash the second world war. In connection with all of the above, I think it is paramount that it is possible to move Stalin from the position of general secretary to the (second) role determined by nature as soon as possible, and to replace the general secretary with a person who is tolerant, polite, attentive and loyal, performing a purely representative function. There can be no doubt that Stalin, even being removed from the post of general secretary, will retain his specific role as the main political leader and financial inspector. "will retain its specific role of the main political leader and financial inspector, there can be no doubts. "will retain its specific role of the main political leader and financial inspector, there can be no doubts."
3. Trotsky, Stalin or someone else?..
What did the recipients of the letter read? Lenin has no serious accusations against Stalin, but for a number of personal reasons (in particular, the well-known quarrel between Stalin and Krupskaya, caused by Nadezhda Konstantinovna's unwillingness to unquestioningly obey the will of the Central Committee in relation to Lenin's regime) V. I. does not want to see Koba as General Secretary. And rightly so, Stalin is an unpleasant person. It is possible that now Lenin will support Trotsky as his successor, there are simply no others.
It is difficult to say exactly what measures each of Lenin's closest entourage took to strengthen his future position. It is known that Stalin received monthly reports from the GPU and was aware of any nuances of the internal party life, controlled both the army and the trade unions. It is interesting that when Lenin's letters to the congress fell into the hands of Stalin, he reacted rather strangely: he refused to read, saying that “he does not interfere in this,” having completely shifted the decision to the 12th congress, where, according to the regulations, he spoke on his usual topic - national question. Stalin was confident in the reliability of the administrative mechanism he created and knew that no fundamental changes would take place after the congress.
Trotsky's report on industrial planning, technical re-equipment and productivity growth was a triumph. The congress unanimously accepted his proposals, and it might even seem that no better successor to Lenin could be found. However, among the members of the Politburo, Trotsky suddenly found himself surrounded by opponents. Stalin also carried out other personnel changes. The three Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin more and more often gathered in Stalin's office, where he, as the owner, walked around with the pipe, while Trotsky clearly felt ill at ease, these people were not his pack. They were not close to Stalin either, but he did not need loved ones.
In response to Zinoviev's attempts to curtail Stalin's rights as general secretary and force him to consult with his comrades on personnel issues, Koba unsubscribed contemptuously: "You are mad about fat, my friends." Confident in his abilities, he informed Zinoviev that he would easily part with the post of general secretary. Are there few places in the political apparatus where the olfactory psychic finds a worthy application for itself? Moreover, he himself created this apparatus, debugged it to work for himself, his safety and survival.
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 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Stalin. Part 7: Ranking or the Best Disaster Cure
Stalin. Part 8: Time to Collect Stones
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
