Arthur Rosenberg 1934
The question of the succession to Lenin became actual in 1922 in consequence of his long illness. It was obvious that his work could not be carried on by any particular individual or individuals, but that his heir must be the Bolshevik Party as a whole. In practice this would mean the government of the ‘Old Guard’, who in the years succeeding to 1903 had built up the party in common with Lenin. Lenin’s cloak thus fell upon the shoulders of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Since, however, they were both politicians and ideologues, they needed the assistance of a practical organiser. Such a one was found in Stalin. Stalin had for years been a member of the party and was a Georgian, or Grusian (as they called themselves), from the Caucasus. The Georgians have contributed a whole series of brilliant men to the Russian revolutionary and socialist movement. There were many Georgians among the influential Mensheviks in 1917. In the revolutionary movement in the days of the Tsars nationality played no part and Great Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, Letts and Georgians worked together with no thought save of the common cause.
Stalin is an educated Russian revolutionary of the prewar type. The fact that he belonged by blood to the small nation of Georgians was at the most responsible for his special interest in the problem of socialism and nationalism. It is an exaggeration to connect Stalin in any way with Circassian romances. In February 1913, in a letter written from Galicia to Maxim Gorki, Lenin said that he agreed with his opinion that it was essential to take nationalism seriously. Lenin continued: ‘We have here a fine type of Grusian’ working on a great study of the question of nationalities for which he has collected the entire Austrian material. The ‘Grusian’ was Stalin, who had just succeeded in escaping from Siberia and who lived for a time in Cracow and Vienna. After 1917 Stalin gradually became more and more prominent as an organiser. In the spring of 1917 he still belonged to the moderate group led by Kamenev and it was only by slow degrees that he became a supporter of Lenin’s policy. As Secretary-General of the Bolshevik Party in 1922 Stalin exercised supreme control over the party machinery. A Committee of Three — Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin — ruled Russia from 1922 to 1925. No constitutional existence was given to this ‘committee’ and the Central Committee of the Communist Party continued as before to take all important decisions. In every important matter, however, these three men made common cause after previously consulting with each other. Any proposal they made was at once accepted by the Central Committee, or its smaller sub-committee, the Political Bureau.
This government by old-time Bolsheviks meant the exclusion of Trotsky from the conduct of affairs. True, he remained a member of the Central Committee and People’s Commissar for War, but his advice was not asked by the three ruling personalities before they decided upon any important action. Although Trotsky enjoyed great authority among the masses of the nation, the clique of old-time Bolsheviks always looked upon him as an interloper. It was known that Trotsky was not in agreement with these old-time Bolsheviks in important matters of policy and organisation. As long as Lenin was well, and controlled the party himself, he had contrived to bridge the gulf separating these old-time Bolsheviks from Trotsky, but the moment Lenin fell ill the chasm was reopened. Towards the close of 1923 Trotsky openly came forward in opposition to the three rulers of Russia. He showed that a small bureaucratic clique had seized power; that the members of the party no longer possessed their right of self-determination; and that the new leaders of the International were involving it in defeat after defeat. It was hardly astonishing that the German revolution should have collapsed so pitifully in 1923 if the Bolshevik Party and the International were led by the very men who had in 1917 threatened to ruin the revolution in Russia. In conjunction with Lenin, Trotsky had in 1917 led the revolution to victory, despite the opposition of the ‘opportunists’ Zinoviev and Kamenev. What moral right then had this so-called Old Guard autocratically to lead the party and the international proletarian movement? Although an old group of leaders may have rendered services that will live on in history, there is always the danger that they will grow stiff and bloodless in the same manner as the Social-Democrat leaders before the World War. Democratic control on the part of the members and the recruitment of new members from the coming generations could alone save the Russian Communist Party from destruction.
It is obvious that these arguments of Trotsky’s attacked the very essence of Bolshevism, namely, the hierarchic construction of the party from below upwards, and the traditional authority of the old Bolshevik Central Committee. If, however, the dictatorship within the party were destroyed, then the dictatorship of the party itself over the Russian peoples could no longer be maintained in its present form. Of necessity the one involved the other. At the end of 1923 and the beginning of 1924 an animated discussion took place within the party on the subject of Trotsky’s opposition. His views were enthusiastically supported by the younger members and especially by the educated proletarian students in the working-class universities. The entire party machine was, however, opposed to him — and the machine ruled the members. Hence the party congress in 1924 declared itself unanimously against Trotsky and for the three rulers of Russia. Trotsky was dismissed from the Commissariat of War and withdrew, temporarily, from all active participation in politics. The party dictatorship and the NEP continued without further opposition.
The membership of the Russian Communist Party rose by the beginning of 1927 to a total of 1,200,000. Of these, about 600,000 were employees and officials of all kinds. Among these employees were a quarter of a million former workmen and 150,000 ex-peasants. The membership of the party also included 150,000 peasants still engaged in agriculture and 450,000 workers in factories. Thus the employees (agents of the governmental machine) and peasants together composed almost two-thirds of the total membership of the party and the actual factory workers only just over one-third.
The governmental apparatus in Russia continually renewed itself from the ranks of clever ex-workers and ex-peasants. In itself this is a sound principle of utilising the best forces in the nation. A genuine dictatorship of the proletariat could not dispense with able officials. These officials, however, would in such a case be subject to a continuous democratic control exercised by the masses and would thus maintain connexion with the masses. In the Russian dictatorship, on the contrary, the official ruled the masses with the aid of party and state discipline. Hence the ex-proletarian under this system, on entering the service of the governmental machine, ceased psychologically and actually to be a member of the working class.
The numerical proportion of workers to non-workers among the members of the Russian Communist Party is typical and significant. But it is less the proportion among the ordinary members than among the members of the party administrative apparatus that is of decisive importance. It was estimated in 1927 that in the party committees charged with the taking of decisions — not only in the Central Committee itself, but also in the local administrative bodies throughout the country — only a tenth of the membership consisted of actual factory workers. The state capitalistic governmental machine had thus come to be independent of the productive classes in the nation.
The reconstruction of Russian industry made great strides from 1924 onwards. In 1927 the prewar rate of production had almost been restored and the total of actual factory hands at work amounted in that year to 2,300,000. The industrialisation of Russia has indeed been in progress ever since 1921 and not only in recent years. The achievement of the six years 1921-27, in which there was little or nothing in the way of material from which to build, is even more deserving of praise than the results obtained in more recent years, when a firm foundation had already been laid. Moreover, the careful advance calculations and planning of economic development for many years to come is as old as Soviet Russia itself, and not a sensational new discovery of the past five years.
The real wages of the Russian workman rose considerably up to 1925, sank in 1926, and rose again in 1927. It is true that the workmen complain of the power wielded by the factory management in whose hands lie in reality the engagement and dismissal of workmen. In the event of disputes between the workmen and the management the State Economic Council decides the issue in a dictatorial fashion by means of compulsory arbitration.
Production also increased in the country districts between 1924 and 1927 — years in which Russia was free from famine. Those were years in which everyone could purchase food-supplies of the best quality in the shops to the limit of his purchasing capacity. Industrial products were scarce and much dearer than in Europe. Increased prosperity brought social distinctions back to life among the peasants. It is incontestable that the typical Russian form of agrarian middle class, the kulaks, the village money-lenders and wealthier peasants, increased in number and influence. There are no figures available to show what percentage of the Russian peasants then belonged to the kulak class; for the characteristic of the kulak is less his possession of a large farm than of money for speculative purposes, and hence the difficulty of arriving at any precise statistical estimation of the number of kulaks. In addition to this difficulty the Russian government and the Opposition were then engaged in a controversy as to the nature and number of kulaks. The one side continually reproached the other with under- or over-estimating the danger from the kulaks, with the result that agrarian statistics were made to serve the purpose of this dispute within the Communist Party itself. Nevertheless, the number of agricultural labourers affords a means of ascertaining the social differences existing in the Russian villages. These agricultural labourers were said, in 1927, to have numbered 1,600,000. Their state was deplorable. Only 20 per cent of their number were members of trade unions. Their real wages were less than before the war, and their daily hours of work were seldom less than ten. Indeed, no limitations were set to their hours of work in the majority of cases, and their wages were paid irregularly and often after months of waiting.
The kulaks were the sole employers of agricultural labour. The small peasants and even those with moderate-sized farms employed no labourers. It may reasonably be supposed that in 1927, in Russia, the number of agricultural labourers far exceeded the number of kulaks. There can, of course, be no doubt that there existed many hundreds of thousands of farmers of the kulak type. When, in 1928, the government resolved to place a super-tax upon the kulaks, it determined to tax two to three per cent of all peasant holdings. The total number of peasant farms in Russia was estimated to be 20 million, and thus the number of kulaks about half a million. The increase in the number of kulaks during the years 1925-27 produced an extraordinary state of affairs in regard to land tenure. Many poor peasants were unable to cultivate their land properly for lack of farm implements and oxen for ploughing. Hence they were forced to let their land to the kulak, who then cultivated it with the aid of his horses and ploughs. The rent received by the peasant consisted of a moderate share in the harvest. This singular procedure was adopted because the direct purchase of land by the well-to-do was attended by difficulties under the Soviet legal system. In contrast to the customary type of land tenure there thus arose in Russia an extraordinary type in which the rich and not the poor were the tenants. Impartial observers have described the relationship of the poor peasant and the agricultural labourer to the kulaks in many parts of Russia as a form of serfdom. Although the percentage of agricultural labourers as of kulaks was small in proportion to the total agricultural population of 100 million in Russia, the emergence of these two classes beside the poor peasants and small farmers was symptomatic of the trend in economic development. It was nothing less than a tragedy that ten years after the victorious October Revolution the spoliation of millions of agricultural labourers and small peasants should be possible.
The unemployed sons of the small peasants migrated to the towns and thus helped to increase the total of unemployment in Russia, until in 1927 it reached a figure of two million. Class enmity increased during the years 1924-27 beneath the cover of the so-called proletarian dictatorship. If the number of industrial workmen engaged in work increased, the number of unemployed also grew larger. Although the real wages of the workmen improved, the profits made by kulaks and traders simultaneously rose; and in the so-called NEP class of traders there were not a few millionaires. For example, there were persons who worked under the cover of a so-called cooperative society. A buying society was established for purchasing textiles from poor homeworkers at miserable prices. This ‘society’ concealed a successful millionaire speculator. The ruling party bureaucracy in Russia was therefore confronted with the task of restoring the balance between all these contending forces in the social life of Russia. The time had come for the rulers of Russia to decide whither their policy was leading them.
After 1924 Stalin developed certain original ideas on the subject of the future of Russia that speedily involved him in a fierce conflict with his two colleagues. The most important of Stalin’s theories, and the one that has become the fundamental doctrine of Bolshevism since 1924, is the theory of the possibility of realising socialism in a single country. It has already been pointed out above that this theory is to be found as early as 1923, in Lenin’s last writings and speeches. It is true that Lenin did not precisely formulate the theory and place its execution in the forefront of the party’s activities. He contented himself with giving it indirect expression in his works. It was Stalin who for the first time clearly formulated the theory and made it the basis of Bolshevism. As late as April 1924, Stalin propounded this old and truly Marxian doctrine in a pamphlet in which he wrote:
An effort on the part of a single country is sufficient to overthrow the middle class. This is shown by the history of our own revolution. An effort on the part of a single country, especially a peasant country like Russia, is not sufficient to achieve the final victory of socialism and the socialist organisation of production. The efforts of the proletariat in several highly-developed countries will be necessary for that purpose.
In December 1924, Stalin repudiated his theories and declared that they must be improved upon. He now divided up the problem into two parts. First, can it be said that there is a complete guarantee against the restoration of a middle-class order of society in Russia? Such a guarantee would imply that for the future all military intervention of no matter what kind on the part of foreign powers in Russia would be impossible. In order that this guarantee may become a real one — Stalin now admits — the victory of a proletarian revolution will be necessary in at least several highly-developed countries. Second, can it be said that the creation of a completely socialist order of society is possible in a single country? Stalin now unhesitatingly answers this question in the affirmative. The path leading to socialism is the one already pointed out by Lenin in 1923: the increased industrialisation of Russia and the simultaneous organisation of the peasants into cooperative societies. The pursuit of the right policy on the part of the party could result in winning over a decisive majority of the peasants for socialism.
The Russian peasants are not, in Stalin’s opinion, the same as European peasants. The peasants in Europe received their land at the hands of a liberal middle class in the course of its struggle with feudalism. Thus the European peasants have become a source of strength for the middle class. In contrast to the European the Russian peasants received land and peace at the hands of the proletariat, and have thus become a source of strength for the proletariat. Moreover, agriculture in Europe continues to develop within the limits of capitalism and to the accompaniment of all the crises attendant upon capitalism, and the steadily increasing impoverishment of larger and larger classes among the agricultural population. In Russia, on the contrary, the Soviet government closes the path to the growth of capitalism and consequently the peasants are progressing towards socialism. If, indeed, as Stalin believes, the economic organisation of Russia is leading to the complete realisation of socialism, then it can no longer be termed ‘state capitalism’. Stalin admits that in 1921, at the time of the introduction of the NEP, Lenin rightly described the conditions obtaining in Russia as a system of state capitalism. The growth of socialism in Russia, however, had as early as 1923 rendered the description ‘state capitalism’ inapplicable, and it was now meaningless. Stalin’s theory resulted in an extraordinary and illusory fashion in resolving the contradiction between legend and reality in Soviet Russia. A proletarian dictatorship existed in Russia, which was only reconcilable with complete socialism. Therefore this complete socialism would now be established in Russia by abolishing entirely all traces of capitalism. The temporary abandonment of socialism which Lenin was compelled to make in 1921 had come to an end. The dream of a socialist order of society that had inspired the Russian workman for so long would at last become a reality. This great aim can obviously only be achieved by Stalin after the manner of Lenin in 1923 by giving Marxist economic doctrines a Narodnik interpretation. Stalin’s theory of a Russian peasant that is no ordinary peasant, but a socialist in embryo, is a purely Narodnik notion. The peasant member of a cooperative society remains a peasant and a producer of food supplies. The Russian workman is still the slave of a dictatorship of semi-middle-class government officials, even in a state organised in accordance with the socialist doctrines of Stalin. Thus Stalin failed to resolve the fundamental contradiction inherent in Soviet Russia. All he had done was to place it on another footing. Since 1925 the Soviet myth consists in the fact that the official Bolshevik doctrines declare nationalist Russian socialism to be the only true Marxian socialism.
Nevertheless, the theory put forward by Stalin marks, from a middle-class nationalist standpoint, a great step forward in the development of the Russian nation. Up to the year 1925 there existed a continual danger that utopian-communist aspirations on the part of the Russian proletariat might paralyse all practical constructive work and drive the state into making the wildest experiments. Unless a revolution in Europe brought relief, and there was little likelihood of its occurrence, the opposition between the idealistic demands of the working class and the actual state of the country must destroy the Russian Revolution. At this juncture Stalin held up before the workers an ideal difficult of attainment and demanding sacrifices — but still an ideal capable of being attained. Although only after great opposition has been overcome the peasantry can, by Stalin’s method, be made an organic part of the Soviet economy. It would not be necessary for Russia either to sink into a chaos produced by utopianism or to return to the Western European system of private capitalism. It can at once retain the fruits of the revolution and resolutely modernise itself. All these advantages are certainly only to be achieved if two preliminary conditions are fulfilled. First, the establishment of dogmatic absolutism in Russia, which will forbid all independent critical thought on the subject of Marxism and socialism. For from the moment the Russian people no longer believe that Stalin’s socialism is the true socialism all the old difficulties will revive. Hence Stalin and his party refuse to tolerate any theoretical deviation from the official beliefs that are declared to be the sole true doctrines of Lenin. Second, the theory of national Russian socialism meant the final separation of Soviet Russia from the world revolution, notwithstanding the fact that Stalin has preserved the façade of the Third International.
At first, Stalin’s new theory effected no practical change in industrial conditions in Soviet Russia. During 1925-27 the work of reconstruction went on with whatever materials were at hand, and accompanied by a rigorous regard for economy and the stability of the Soviet currency. Of greater importance were the changes that occurred in the agricultural districts of Russia. Stalin, like all other Bolsheviks, knew that the kulaks — the village money-lenders — were enemies of the Soviet state, and that the very poor peasants for the most part sympathised with the town proletariat. The decisive influence among the Russian peasantry was, nevertheless, neither the kulak nor the very poor peasant, but the class of so-called ‘middle’ peasants who could live comfortably on the produce of their farms without, however, having any surplus. In 1925 Stalin urged upon the Communist Party the extreme importance of making firm friends of the ‘middle’ peasants. These ‘middle’ peasants, or small farmers, were not merely to be obedient to the government officials but also to become convinced and enthusiastic supporters of the Soviet state. Once that had taken place it would be easy to induce them voluntarily to form cooperative societies. Stalin demanded that the last vestiges of Wartime Communism should be made to disappear from the villages. Party and government officials were not to make these farmers conscious of their authority. Free elections should be held for country soviets. In those districts where elections had already been held under pressure from the government officials the results were to be declared null and void and new elections held.
Stalin’s object was to strengthen soviet democracy at any rate within the realm of local government. The Bolshevik Party in any case continued to enjoy the monopoly of being the only political party in Russia, and the foundation or promotion of any new party continued to be forbidden. The peasants were now to be free to elect non-party men from their own ranks to serve on the village councils, and these village soviets were to have freedom of action within the limits of Soviet law. This unquestionably denoted a relaxation of the party dictatorship. All harshness was to be avoided in the collection of land taxes, and the greater part of the receipts from these taxes were allocated to the local administration in order that the peasants in the village soviet might decide for themselves what use was to be made of their own money. Stalin’s object in making these concessions was to isolate the anti-Soviet kulaks from the main body of the peasants and to oppose to them a front of small farmers and poor peasants who were loyal government supporters. The success of this policy pursued by the Soviet government between 1925 and 1927 is highly questionable. It became evident again and again in the free elections for the village soviets that the kulak was the ruler of the village, was followed by the other peasants, and was master of the local soviet. In districts where the kulak controlled the local administration the poor peasant was treated more harshly than the rich in the assessment of taxes, and the state subsidies for the promotion of agriculture went to swell the pockets of the kulak. Even as early as 1925 the kulaks in a great part of Russia were not afraid to buy up the produce of the poor peasants and small farmers. The corn thus purchased was then stored away in their barns and retained until a shortage of bread caused the price of wheat to rise to fantastic heights.
Nevertheless, in the years 1925-27 Stalin hesitated to take forcible measures against the kulaks. He was afraid that the small farmers would fail to understand the purpose of police action against the kulaks, and that they would think that Wartime Communism with its use of force had once more returned to their midst. Once this belief took root and spread, the masses of the peasants would be seized with panic and would adopt an inimical attitude towards the Soviet government that would render impossible the peaceful winning over of the small farmers for socialism. Whilst the kulaks were organising first economic and then political counter-revolution in the villages, Stalin continued his methods of educating the peasants by gentle means. In districts where speculation in corn on the part of the kulaks was specially notorious the government threw on the market, at low prices, large quantities of grain from its own grain stores. Prices were thus forced down and the kulaks were at least in part compelled to disgorge their stocks. This warfare between the omnipotent Soviet government and the kulaks had a tragi-comic aspect. If it continued for some years, what would be left of the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Winning the goodwill of the peasants was in Stalin’s eyes not an end in itself. His desire was to make the peasants anxious to accept socialist improvements. At the same time his policy was capable of another interpretation. A group specially friendly to the peasants grew up within the Russian Communist Party and was referred to in its discussions as the Right. At the head of this right wing was Rykov, the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, and Bukharin, the most highly respected Marxist thinker in the party, and the author of important scientific books. These men were of the opinion that Russia was and would remain an agricultural country, notwithstanding all the progress that had been made towards its industrialisation. The prosperity of Russia therefore depended wholly upon agriculture, and everything possible must be done to improve the productivity and standard of life of the peasants. The development of a rich peasantry would from this standpoint be anything but a misfortune for the Soviet government, since if the Soviet state held in its hand the control of heavy industry, foreign trade and the entire banking system, a wealthy peasantry could not injure it. Where was the peasant to take his savings? All he could do was to purchase government stocks bearing a good rate of interest or put his money into the nearest state savings bank. No matter what happened, the accumulated profits of the kulak or the successful trader must eventually return to benefit the Soviet state.
Bukharin, Rykov and their intimate friends accepted without reservations Lenin’s and Stalin’s theory of the possibility of realising socialism in a single land. This justified them in designating the economy of Soviet Russia, despite its many inner contradictions, as ‘socialist’. In 1925, in the course of a speech addressed to the wealthy peasants Bukharin gave them as a motto ‘Enrich yourselves!’. This phrase coming as it did from the lips of the government theorist made an enormous impression. For the first time the purpose of the new policy became clear. Many Russian workmen and old-time Bolsheviks said to themselves that the kulak’s lust for profits should now be proclaimed to be true socialism. A cynical use was being made of the word ‘socialism’ and the way was being prepared for Russia’s return to capitalism. In order to calm the excitement in the party and among the working class Stalin declared officially that he disapproved of the phrase ‘Enrich yourselves!’. And in truth Stalin was wholly opposed to the group led by Bukharin and Rykov which wished to perpetuate the conditions created by the NEP of 1921 and the concessions made to the wealthy peasants. This group looked upon the perpetuation of the existent state of affairs in Russia as the sole means to the pursuit of a socialist policy. Stalin, on the contrary, wished the existent conditions merely to serve as a basis upon which it should and would be possible to erect something new in the future. Moreover, Stalin and the aged Lenin were not free from responsibility for this misunderstanding, since if Marxian socialism is replaced by the arbitrary theory of ‘socialism in a single land’ there is small cause for wonder when people of all sorts and conditions read into this ‘socialism’ whatever they wish it to mean.
A singular chance willed that the most prominent leader of Russian trade unionism, Tomsky, was also to be found among the followers of Bukharin and Rykov. Tomsky was a sceptic and a realist politician who reconciled himself to the agricultural character of Russian economy as an unalterable fact. The Russian worker, in Tomsky’s opinion, should not run after wild visions and should devote himself to obtaining as good a livelihood as possible in the existent circumstances. If the country were ruined by utopian socialist experiments, the workman would suffer more than anybody in that he would again experience the pangs of hunger. Tomsky represented the views of a minority of skilled and better-paid Russian workmen who had grown weary of revolution and refused to listen any longer to socialist fables. Their desire was to defend and to improve their living conditions with the assistance of the trade unions. If the Soviet state were to take on a semi-middle-class character that would not cause them any anxiety, since the skilled workmen as a professional class would not be likely to suffer from the change. Tomsky regarded the Soviet state after the fashion in which a Western European socialist trade-union leader looks upon his middle-class capitalist state. For this reason it is easy to understand why in the years 1925-27 Tomsky was the most enthusiastic worker for an alliance between the Russian workers and the socialist trade unions in Europe.
It is obvious that the Right group in the Bolshevik Party — the group led by Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky — made use of the theory of ‘socialism in a single land’ in order to free themselves from the Socialist–Communist myth. On the other hand, Stalin wanted to use this theory to lend an appearance of reality to the myth itself. Moreover, the seemingly insuperable inability of the Soviet government to deal with the kulaks and traders aroused new hopes in the middle-class Russian intellectuals. These men were in part to be found in the service of the Soviet state and in part in exile. It seemed to them that Russia was now increasing the pace of her return journey to a middle-class order of society that had begun in 1921 and that Stalin and Bukharin, notwithstanding their socialist formulas, would either themselves restore the middle-class nationalist state in Russia or that the evolution would proceed irresistibly by way of the right-wing Communists until the old conditions had been restored. There thus came into existence within and without Russia a group of Russian intellectuals who supported Stalin and the Soviet government. These men openly wrote their articles in support of Stalin from the standpoint of Russian middle-class patriots, and did not deem it necessary to make any profession of faith in socialism and communism. A minor Soviet official named Ustryalov became famous in these years as the mouthpiece of Stalin’s middle-class followers. The support of these men gravely compromised the Soviet government in the eyes of the party and the workmen. A single article in praise of the government from Ustryalov’s pen did more harm to Stalin than a hundred spiteful attacks in the newspapers published by the exiled White Guards. For it seemed as if the middle-class counter-revolution could claim the leading men in Soviet Russia as its supporters. Hence Stalin was forced in his great speeches before the party congresses — the most ceremonial occasions in the life of the Soviet state — to point out time and again at great length the divergences of opinion separating him from the minor official Ustryalov.
After Trotsky had been defeated in the party debates and excluded from power towards the close of 1924 Stalin propounded his theory in the form of a violent attack upon Trotsky’s conception of the permanent international revolution. At first Trotsky kept silence and waited to see how the party would react to Stalin’s ideas. He had not long to wait. In 1925 the crisis came in a disruption of the Committee of Three. The Bolshevik Old Guard, led by Zinoviev and Kamenev, rejected Stalin’s theory of socialism in a single state and his agrarian policy as an opportunist deviation from Marxism and Leninism. Thanks to the support of the right wing, led by Bukharin and Rykov, Stalin obtained a majority in the Central Committee, and thus became sole head of the party and the government. Dissension, nevertheless, increased within the party. Hundreds of old-time Bolsheviks, among them Lenin’s widow, Madame Krupskaya, joined the opposition to Stalin and Bukharin in the belief that the revolution had not been undertaken merely to enable the kulaks to grow rich. The Leningrad Bolshevik Party revolted against the Central Committee. Violent debates took place at the celebrated Fourteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in December 1925. Since he had the party machine firmly under his control, Stalin was successful in securing the election of the majority of his supporters as delegates to the party congress, although their election was no true indication of the state of feeling among the members of the party and the working class. Trotsky continued to maintain silence. It was not until 1926 that Russia was suddenly electrified by the news that Trotsky had allied himself with Zinoviev in waging war on the Soviet government and the party leaders.
The fact that it was the Bolshevik Old Guard who now turned to him for help afforded Trotsky great personal satisfaction. These men had for twenty years been his greatest opponents in doctrinal matters. In the discussions in 1923 and 1924 Zinoviev and Kamenev had directed a fierce bombardment upon Trotsky and his doctrines that had been answered no less fiercely. Stalin had in those days refrained from appearing in the forefront of the attack upon Trotsky and had prevented his expulsion from the Russian Communist Party on the motion of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Now two years later Trotsky and his former opponents were walking arm-in-arm. It was, moreover, obvious that Trotsky alone was the intellectual inspiration of the Opposition, since he alone had a theory fundamentally opposed to that of Stalin. The old-time Bolsheviks could not reproach Stalin in matters of principle, but only accuse him of mistakes and backslidings in matters of detail. In spite of internal differences of opinion this left wing solidly opposed Stalin in 1926-27 with an ever-increasing sharpness. Stalin was accused of preparing the Thermidor of the Russian Revolution. On 9 November 1794, Robespierre had been overthrown by the French capitalists, and it now seemed that a similar occurrence was imminent in the history of the Russian Revolution.
Stalin still retained control of the party machine and the state administration and was supported by the secretaries of the party, by Ustryalov, the kulaks and NEP men (successful traders and profiteers), and the young ‘Red Professors’ who had been taught by Bukharin to reconcile Leninist doctrines with the slogan ‘Enrich yourselves!’. Stalin was opposed by Trotsky and Krupskaya, Zinoviev and Kamenev, the senior members of the party, and all who had been prisoners in Siberia or fought in the battles of the Civil War. In 1927 Stalin saw himself in danger of being compelled to fight on an untenable front, that is, in alliance with all the partly and wholly middle-class elements in the country against the proletariat and the ideals of the Russian Revolution. From such a struggle Stalin could only emerge defeated, or in the event of victory would be compelled to open the gates to the counter-revolution. The sharpest criticism of the Opposition was directed less against Stalin’s domestic than against his foreign policy. The history of the Third International has been narrated above up to the winter of 1923-24, in which the KPD found itself in danger of dissolution as a result of its decisive defeat in the March Action. The dissatisfaction felt by the members of the party with Brandler’s policy had resulted in giving the Left Opposition the majority in the party. If this Left Opposition had publicly and resolutely proclaimed that the International was to blame for the disaster in Germany, the party would have been split in twain, a cleavage that would have been accompanied by serious consequences for the Executive and the Bolshevik leaders. The Left Opposition was, nevertheless, not as powerful as it seemed. Although its leaders were under no illusions regarding the Russian myth, they had not imparted their knowledge to their followers. The members of the KPD still believed in Soviet Russia. They blamed the Central Committee of the KPD for the mistakes of 1921-23, and believed that the Executive and the Bolshevik leaders had been kept in ignorance of the facts. Since the Left Opposition leaders had up to 1923 not ventured to denounce this Russian legend, they now found themselves its prisoners.
The logical members of the Left — called in reproach ultra-left by their opponents — were unable to gain acceptance for their views. The friends of a compromise with Russia were in a majority and the Left came to an understanding in 1924 with the Executive. The Executive and the Left then joined in placing the entire responsibility for the mistakes made in Germany upon Brandler’s shoulders. The revolutionary glory of the Executive and the Bolshevik leaders was unimpaired in the eyes of German Communists and the Executive in return permitted the Left to take over the leadership of the KPD. The Pyrrhic victory of the German Left at the party congress in Frankfurt in 1924 bore in it the seeds of the coming disaster in that the Left was deprived of all independent beliefs and contributed to strengthen in Germany the authority of the Third International.
The Fifth World Congress of the Communist International met in 1924 in Moscow, and was the scene of an orgy of rhetorical radicalism that was wholly unmeaning. Zinoviev now retrospectively damned the ‘opportunist’ policy of Brandler and designated the Saxon policy of 1923 ‘a banal parliamentary comedy’. As a reply to this denunciation the left-wing Central Committee of the KPD declared itself in opposition to Trotsky and passed a vote of confidence in the Russian Committee of Three. In truth the policy of the united front that had been pursued in 1922-23 could no longer be maintained in the same fashion. Zinoviev laid emphasis upon the fact that a labour government could only be looked upon as another expression for a dictatorship of the proletariat. From a practical standpoint the notion of a labour government ceased to have any importance, and the policy of the united front between Communists and Social-Democrats broke down as a result of the internal dissensions in the Third International. When Stalin developed his theory of socialism in a single land, it was obvious that this must have a decisive influence upon the future of the International. Stalin’s theory was that Russia could achieve socialism alone if the working class abroad could prevent an armed capitalist foreign intervention in Soviet Russia. Since, however, the Communists as a minority in the world proletariat are not able themselves to guard Russia against such a danger, it is necessary to achieve direct connexion between Soviet Russia and the Social-Democrat majority of the international proletariat. Scarcely had the policy of a united front been buried in its old dress than it was resurrected and clad in a new garb. This new garb was the international solidarity of trade unions. If necessary the International of the Red Trade Unions would be sacrificed for this purpose. This International comprised the Russian trade unions together with larger and smaller individual trade unions in France, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Asia, etc. The great majority of the trade-unionist workmen in Europe belonged to the so-called Social-Democrat Amsterdam Trade-Union International. The Red International now proposed to the Amsterdam International the holding of a World Congress of Trade Unions for the purpose of achieving their unification.
If the congress had ever assembled it would have marked a decisive stage in the breakdown of international Communism. It is true that the Bolshevik leaders hotly denied, in 1925-27, that they had in view the dissolution of the Third International. Suppose, nevertheless, that this world congress of trade unions had held a meeting and decided upon achieving the international unification of the trade unions. The central committee of the new world International would comprise English and German Social-Democrats as well as Russian Communists. The new world International would be responsible for all international working-class action and, in the several countries comprised in the International, Socialists and Communists would jointly conduct the daily economic struggle. The separate existence of the Communist International and the individual Communist parties would be rendered so unnecessary that the workers themselves would put forward an irresistible demand for political unification.
Stalin and his supporters cannot have been ignorant of the inevitable results of their proposal for bringing about the international unification of the trade-union movement. Their aim was to make the bonds uniting Soviet Russia to the international proletariat as tight as possible. If the organised workmen in all European countries sympathised with Soviet Russia, there would no longer be any cause to fear a foreign invasion. The payment made by Soviet Russia for this incomparable service was very slight and consisted in fact in the renunciation of an outworn revolutionary romanticism that was no longer regarded seriously by leading circles in Russia. It is also comprehensible that it should have been especially the Right wing in the Russian Communist Party, led by Bukharin and Tomsky, that worked in the interests of international proletarian solidarity. The Right hoped in this manner to free themselves of the remains of the proletarian revolutionary myth that hindered them in their domestic policy. Obviously the Communist International must continue to reflect faithfully the hesitations and tactical manoeuvres of Moscow for as long as it remained in existence. Disturbances were, however, to be expected from the side of the KPD under its left-wing leadership. Hence the Left wing was deprived of its leadership by the Executive as a result of a manoeuvre carried out by Bukharin in 1925 with brilliant diplomatic skill. A part of the Left wing — the Thälmann group — unconditionally submitted to orders from Moscow and established a new Central Committee prepared loyally to carry out the wishes of the Bolshevik leaders. The other leaders of the former German Left were driven out into the political wilderness and expelled from the party in succeeding years. The majority of the members of the KPD had lost all revolutionary spirit after the defeat of 1923, and consequently believed all the more firmly in the Russian fable. The left-wing leaders were followed into political exile by only a few small sections in the party and these Left Communist groups that formed outside the official parties in Germany and other countries endeavoured to establish relations with Trotsky and his followers. Thus the Russian line of battle grew longer. Pamphlets in which Trotsky and Zinoviev criticised Stalin’s policy were zealously distributed by Left Communists in 1926 and 1927 in Germany and France.
The Social-Democrat leaders in Europe looked with grave mistrust upon Russian endeavours to promote international unity among the trade unions. A greater degree of success attended their efforts in England. English trade-union officials made a tour of Russia, published glowing reports of their Russian impressions, and pronounced themselves in favour of an alliance with the Russian workmen. A separate agreement was concluded between Russian and English trade unions by which both parties pledged themselves to work in common in the interests of the international proletariat and in the campaign for international unification of trade unions. Tomsky was the moving spirit in this Anglo-Russian united front. Trade-union leaders from both countries met on several occasions during the years 1925-27 to exchange views on the international situation. The English trade unions are for all practical purposes identical with the English Labour Party. Hence the tiny English Communist Party was, in truth, excluded from this united front of Russian Bolsheviks and English socialists. The friendship of the English workmen was at this time of great value to the Soviet government because events in Asia had strained Anglo-Russian relations to breaking-point and the English Conservatives threatened to make war on Russia.
A general strike occurred in England in 1926 which ended in defeat for the English trade unions. The consequences of this defeat were overcome with extraordinary rapidity by the English workmen. The Russian government and Tomsky refrained from criticising the policy of the English trade-union officials for fear lest they should offend them and lose the friendship which they needed so badly. In truth the labour movement in England from the World War to the present day has made amazing progress and has no need of Russian teachers. Nevertheless, in the customary phrases employed by the Communist International, the English trade-union leaders who called off the general strike were styled ‘strike-breakers, agents of the middle class, and betrayers of the workmen’. The leaders of the Opposition in Russia, Trotsky and Zinoviev, now made use of these polite epithets when speaking of the leaders of the English labour movement. The Opposition accused Stalin of concealing the ‘betrayal of the workers’ on the part of the English ‘reformists’ out of consideration for less important interests of state. The criticism of English Social-Democracy by the English Communists was rendered valueless, and the entire work of the Communist Party in England rendered hopeless, because the Social-Democrat leaders of the English labour movement could always secure the approval of Soviet Russia and the Bolsheviks for their actions. The double-dealing of official Bolshevik policy was indeed mercilessly revealed by the events in England in 1926-27. Either the Bolsheviks must admit the English Social-Democrats to be in the right and therefore dissolve the Communist International, or they must continue to prove themselves Communists by pursuing an independent Communist policy and by breaking with the English Social-Democrats. Stalin thus found himself at a crossroads in 1927, both in foreign and domestic policy.
All the paradoxes characterising the English policy of the Bolsheviks appeared still more sharply and with tragic results in the Chinese revolution. In the years following upon the World War the rise of Soviet Russia had been greeted with enthusiasm in all Asiatic lands. The patriots in the various districts in Asia where a struggle was being waged with foreign rulers and European-American imperialism, saw their natural allies in the Bolsheviks. Soviet Russia had renounced all the unfair treaties which had been forced upon Asiatic countries in Tsarist days. Soviet Russia had retained her rights only in the North Manchurian Railway — and by doing so created a fruitful source of trouble. In no other Asiatic country was there such a feeling of sympathy with the Russian Revolution as in China. The nationalist movement for liberation in China found its embodiment in the Kuomintang Party founded by Dr Sun Yat-Sen. The party was animated by the ideas of the young intellectuals and especially of students who had been educated in Europe. In their struggle against foreign imperialism the Kuomintang had the support of the masses of Chinese workmen and peasants as well as of patriotic businessmen and estate-owners. The attitude of the Kuomintang in social questions was as ambiguous as that of European democracy before 1848. Sun Yat-Sen had himself declared that China was still in a pre-capitalist stage of development. A clever policy on the part of the Kuomintang could prevent the development of private capitalism of the European type in China. The development of China’s productive forces could proceed under state capitalism and thus the Chinese nation would be spared the danger of being poisoned by the struggle between capital and labour. Unhappily in the years following on the World War an industrial proletariat numbering millions came into existence whose cares and demands could not be overlooked. Sun Yat-Sen’s ideas were of as little avail in talking away the existence of capitalism in China as those of the Narodniki in destroying its existence in Russia.
The principal enemies of the Kuomintang in China were the foreign powers with their settlements and men-of-war. There were in addition the native Chinese millionaires, who were involved in the ramifications of international capital, and, finally, adventurers, styling themselves Generals and Marshals, with their armies. The Kuomintang had indeed overthrown the monarchy in China before the World War. But authority in the majority of the provinces had fallen into the hands of the generals who joined with the foreigners in brutally repressing the national movement for liberation. At the time of Sun Yat-Sen’s death his party only ruled over Canton and the surrounding provinces in southern China. In the rest of China the generals and their armies were the rulers. During the years 1924-25 the Bolsheviks were the stronger party in the relations between Soviet Russia and the Kuomintang. The Bolsheviks were the rulers of a great and powerful empire with all its possibilities of help for China. The Kuomintang barely maintained itself in a single Chinese province. Nevertheless, the Soviet government recognised that the future belonged to the Kuomintang. Although belief in the possibility of spreading the world revolution from land to land by the sword had been abandoned, it was obvious that once a Russophile national government came into power in China that vast country with its 400 million inhabitants would become the political and economic ally of Soviet Russia. That would mean an enormous support for the international position of Soviet Russia and this would be an object that would repay much sacrifice. For this reason the Soviet government supported the Kuomintang generously with advice and assistance.
The Kuomintang was willing in 1924 to enter the Third International. Soviet Russia politely refused its request. Although Lenin had laid upon the Bolsheviks the duty of stirring up nationalist revolutions among the oppressed Asiatic peoples, it was impossible for the Bolsheviks to bring themselves to admitting a middle-class party like the Kuomintang into the proletarian International. Their refusal led to the foundation of an independent Communist Party in China. Its membership remained small up to 1927, although it exercised a profound ideological influence upon millions of workmen and peasants, for in the years prior to 1927 Soviet Russia and Bolshevism meant to the masses of the people in China approximately what it had meant to European workmen in the years 1919-20. The Bolsheviks were given an opportunity throughout the years 1924-27 to pursue one of two policies in regard to the Chinese revolution. The first policy was based firmly on the belief that only a middle-class nationalist revolution was possible in China — and nothing else. In that case the leaders of the Kuomintang must be unconditionally and unreservedly supported even if the middle-class element should completely dominate the Kuomintang. A distinguished soldier, General Chiang Kai-Shek, had become Chairman of the Kuomintang in succession to Dr Sun Yat-Sen, and he felt himself to be politically a representative of the middle-class right wing of the party. If the Soviet government believed this policy to be right, it should have unquestioningly supported Chiang Kai-Shek and instructed the Communist Party in China to follow its example. The second policy was based on the belief that the Chinese revolution could be carried on beyond the limits of the middle-class stage within a reasonable time. In that case the Kuomintang should only be supported in so far as it really fought against military despotism and foreign imperialism. At the same time the Communist Party in China must ruthlessly pursue its own policy. It must place itself at the head of the workmen and peasants, organise soviets of armed workers of all classes throughout China, overthrow the Kuomintang in the course of the revolution, and establish a democratic dictatorship of the peasants and workers.
Fate decreed that Stalin and the Chinese Communists should not make any serious attempt to adopt either of these alternative policies, but that they should endeavour to effect a weak compromise that involved them in complete disaster. It is unquestionable that the Soviet government was from 1924 to 1927 inspired with the sincere desire to make common cause with Chiang Kai-Shek and the leaders of the Kuomintang. The Communists in China were organised in two ways: they became members of the Kuomintang and undertook to support it loyally in addition to being members of the Communist Party. A vast wave of discontent swept over the masses in China during the years 1924-27. The workmen refused any longer to accept the miserable existence of coolies that was forced upon them by their employers. The peasants rebelled against the intolerable burden of rents and taxes. Nevertheless, the Communist Party in China never contemplated placing itself at the head of these discontented masses. Instead it hindered, in so far as it lay in its power, insurrections on the part of peasants and workmen, prevented the proletariat from arming, opposed strikes and allowed officials of the Kuomintang to deal cruelly with peasant extremists. All this was done in the name of the political truce between the Communists and the Kuomintang. The united front of all patriotic classes in China in the struggle against imperialism must not be broken up. The Chinese Communist Party anxiously avoided suggesting the establishment of soviets to the masses of the population.
At the same time the Chinese Communist Party had certain duties as a Communist party and belonged to the proletarian International. The Kuomintang was itself not a united party. There was a left wing composed of sympathisers with the workmen and peasants which was in opposition to Chiang Kai-Shek’s right wing. The Communist Party began to intrigue against Chiang Kai-Shek in alliance with the Kuomintang left wing. In 1926 the Kuomintang won a number of astonishing military successes. Chiang Kai-Shek set out on his famous march northwards that led him from one province to another as far as the Yangtse-Kiang valley and Shanghai. The Chinese Communist Party endeavoured to impede his progress by all sorts of intrigues. Chiang Kai-Shek was, nevertheless, successful in reaching Shanghai. He now became convinced that Soviet Russia and the Communists were his enemies and in the spring of 1927 he took action against them. The Chinese Communist Party and its subsidiary and associated organisations were dissolved and the opposition of the workmen broken by force. For a brief moment it appeared as if the left wing in the Kuomintang would fight against Chiang Kai-Shek in alliance with the Communists. In the result all groups in the Kuomintang united against Russia. The ban on the Chinese Communist Party remained in force, all Russian helpers and advisers were expelled from China, and the Kuomintang government broke off relations with Soviet Russia.
Thus Stalin’s Chinese policy ended in disaster. Everything that had been gained in Asia in the way of authority and prestige had been lost. The sympathies of the Chinese National Party for Soviet Russia had been changed into bitter enmity. The Communist International had not wished to wage class warfare in China. Instead it had manoeuvred and intrigued. The result was that the masses were defeated and the middle-class element in the Kuomintang won the day. The Opposition in Russia bitterly attacked Stalin’s foreign policy. In May 1927 Trotsky and Zinoviev drew up an indictment of Stalin and the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party that criticised with unparalleled sharpness the foreign and domestic policy of the rulers of Russia. The indictment was signed within a short space of time by five hundred of the oldest members of the Bolshevik Party. In this indictment the writers say inter alia:
The question at issue is not whether we have sustained a terrible defeat in China but why, how and for what reason we have sustained it... No Marxist will deny that the false policy in China and in the matter of the Anglo-Russian Committee [the joint committee of Russian and English trade unions] was not a matter of chance. It is a continuation and enlargement of the mistaken domestic policy... The economy of the Soviet Republic has in the main come to the end of its period of reconstruction. Real results have been achieved in the course of this period of economic reconstruction.
Grave difficulties arose simultaneously with these achievements as a result of this period of economic reconstruction. These difficulties, which arose out of an insufficient development of productive forces and out of our economic backwardness, were increased by being concealed from the broad masses of the party. Instead of being given a Marxian analysis of the true situation of the proletarian dictatorship in Soviet Russia the party was put off with the petty middle-class ‘theory of socialism in a single land’ which has nothing in common with Marxism and Leninism. This gross desertion of Marxism resulted in rendering it harder for the party to discern the nature of the economic process in progress from a class standpoint. It is, nevertheless, in the rearrangement of classes to the disadvantage of the proletariat, and in the misery in which broad masses of the people are living, that there exist the negative phenomena of the period of revolution that we have experienced.
The Declaration of the Five Hundred continues:
This mistaken policy accelerates the growth of elements inimical to the proletarian dictatorship — the kulaks, NEP men, the bureaucrats. Our entire party policy suffers from taking a swing to the right... The self-satisfied officials who toady to their superiors; the petty middle-class men who have wormed their way up to posts of authority and look down arrogantly on the masses — these find the ground growing steadily firmer beneath their feet and raise their heads higher and higher... Under the NEP the new bourgeoisie has become a powerful element in the towns and in the country.
The declaration warned the Central Committee of the party against attempting to discredit or destroy the left, proletarian, ‘Leninist’ wing. Their destruction would inevitably result in a speedy increase of strength to the right wing and in opening up the prospect of a no less inevitable ‘subjection of the interests of the proletariat to those of other classes’.
In these words Trotsky and the old Bolsheviks uttered their warning against the approaching Thermidor of the Russian Revolution. Towards the close of 1927 Stalin recognised that his entire policy had led Russia up a blind alley. He sought and found the way out in December 1927 at the Fifteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party.