It’s one of those days when I’m not particularly interested in writing on a particular topic, or that I’ve already written about the current hot topic, so here’s a History Matters video on how Stalin outmaneuvered all his potential Soviet rivals.
In the game of revolutionary violence, the most ruthless seem to invariably come out on top…
Tags: Communism, Soviet Union, Stalin, video
Stalin was very astute, possibly smarter than the ostentatious public intellectuals of the Bolshevik movement.
Lenin got sick in 1921, creating a free-for-all within the Soviet government. Stalin became CPSU General Secretary in 1922, almost as a consolation prize. He immediately grasped that the CPSU General Secretary could use his power of appointment to staff the very powerful CPSU bureaucracy with toadies and allies. Which he did with a vengeance.
Most of Stalin’s opponents sought NarKom billets (like Cabinet Secretaries) which they thought were the apex of power, but they really weren’t. NarKoms controlled only narrow slivers of the Soviet bureaucracy. They could not challenge Stalin’s broad control of the entire Soviet bureaucracy.
Stalin then cleverly fought his opponents from the ideological center, first defeating the Left Communists (Trotsky and the Old Bolsheviks) with the assistance of the Right Communists. Then he turned on the Right Communists (Bukharin et al) and defeated them in turn.
By 1933, Stalin held exclusive power in the USSR and only needed to clean up debris. The Great Purge was that clean up exercise. No one in any USSR power center could then stop him.
A week or two previous History Matters did a video about the Russian surrender/exit from WWI. It still amazes me that Trotsky was let anywhere near the reins of power after his plan to inspire the German working class to revolt… by simply withdrawing the Soviet troops to the east, conceding large swathes of land to the Germans.
Somehow it came as a surprise to Trotsky when the German workers reacted quite similarly to the Russians… and while the Russians had revolted in the face of repeated defeats, the Germans supported their government in the face of a great, nearly bloodless conquest.
Trotsky must have been charismatic as anything to be seen as a contender to become Lenin’s heir after that.
“….It still amazes me that Trotsky was let anywhere near the reins of power after his plan to inspire the German working class to revolt… by simply withdrawing the Soviet troops to the east, conceding large swathes of land to the Germans….”
Trotsky and the Left Communists convinced Lenin to unleash Soviet hordes on Europe in 1919. The Soviet Konarmia was the largest cavalry formation ever fielded, under the Armenian Gai Khan. It was backed up by Marshall Tukhachevsky, the Red Napoleon, with 140,000 infantry. Marshall Pilsudski stopped the Soviets cold at the gates of Warsaw, but all the Soviet troops escaped into East Prussia during September 1920, where they were welcomed by the Germans.
Trotsky was NarKom of Army and Navy Affairs throughout the entire Polish-Soviet War.
Trotsky knew that eastern Germans, actually most Germans, were extremely friendly to the Soviets and their armed formations. He feared the Poles, but not the Germans. The Germans demonstrated their fealty to the Soviets by providing sanctuary to Soviet troops.
Totalitarian systems reward ruthlessness. Josef Stalin’s utter moral depravity made him the perfect choice for leader of the Soviet system.
“Just as the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would soon have to choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure. It is for this reason that the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful in a society tending towards totalitarianism.”
FA Hayek–Road to Serfdom.
None of which explains why Trotsky didn’t come down with an extreme case of dead after giving away something like half of European Russia to the Kaiser some two years earlier.
“None of which explains why Trotsky didn’t come down with an extreme case of dead after giving away something like half of European Russia to the Kaiser some two years earlier.”
Lenin prioritized firming up Bolshevik control within Russia over defending Russia against the Germans. Lenin also saw the Germans as actual allies. The Germans, after all, had shipped Lenin to Finland Station on 17 April 1917.
Trotsky was NarKom for Foreign Affairs during negotiations with the Germans during the second half of 1917, but he followed Lenin’s instructions rather than his own preferences. Trotsky himself advocated a ‘no war, no peace’ policy against Germany which had little support among any faction in Russia, much less Lenin.
Trotsky only became NarKom of Army and Navy Affairs on 13 March 1918 after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, That treaty ended German advances into Russia. About half of all German Ostfront troops were then transferred to the west. Trotsky had only two months before the Civil War broke out in earnest, so he really didn’t have the time to develop a Red Army which could attack the Ostfront Germans remaining.