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Stalin: From the Caucasus to the Kremlin
This new biography of Stalin offers an accessible and up-to-date representation of one of the twentieth-century’s defining figures, as well as new insights, analysis and illumination to deepen our understanding of his actions, intentions and the nature of the power that he wielded.
Christopher Read examines Stalin’s contribution to and impact on Russian and world events in the first half of the twentieth century. The biography brings together the avalanche of sources and scholarship which followed the collapse of the system Stalin constructed, including the often neglected writings and speeches of Stalin himself. In addition to a detailed narrative and analysis of Stalin’s rule, chapters also cover his early years and humble beginnings in a small town at a remote outpost of the Russian Empire, his role in the revolution, his relationships with Lenin, Trotsky and others in the 1920s, and his rise to become one of the most powerful figures in human history. The book closes with an account of Stalin’s afterlife and legacy, both in the immediate aftermath of his death and in the decades since.
This concise account of Stalin’s life is the perfect introduction for students of modern Russian history.
Christopher Read examines Stalin’s contribution to and impact on Russian and world events in the first half of the twentieth century. The biography brings together the avalanche of sources and scholarship which followed the collapse of the system Stalin constructed, including the often neglected writings and speeches of Stalin himself. In addition to a detailed narrative and analysis of Stalin’s rule, chapters also cover his early years and humble beginnings in a small town at a remote outpost of the Russian Empire, his role in the revolution, his relationships with Lenin, Trotsky and others in the 1920s, and his rise to become one of the most powerful figures in human history. The book closes with an account of Stalin’s afterlife and legacy, both in the immediate aftermath of his death and in the decades since.
This concise account of Stalin’s life is the perfect introduction for students of modern Russian history.
362 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 7, 2016
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December 31, 2018
“I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the winds of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy” - J.V.Stalin
This is my book of the year. Think you know Stalin think again. Probably like many people my impression and knowledge of Stalin was based upon 'received opinion' which in the case of such a towering and controversial figure has been very much moulded by histories victors and those with specific ideological axes to grind. Time and again historians remind us that history tends to be written with a purpose and that purpose is often not simply to tell a verbatim account of events. In any case any verbatim account of events will depend upon the lenses through which they are viewed and the background and schooling of the writer. How these factors combine to affect writing on and scholarship of the USSR have determined and created a vast and contradictory library of knowledge which is at much at war with itself as the various sides were in the 1917-1990 First Cold War. The writing from this period, and after, is often highly weaponised and should be approached as potentially loaded and dangerous.
There is probably something in this book to shock, surprise and outrage everyone. I am sure some will write off the author as an apologist for one of recent histories classic monsters. However, for those who wish to get to grips with the enigma that is Stalin and for those who feel that if Stalin has not been made a scapegoat then at least the history we generally know is incomplete and unsatisfactory, then this is a great place to begin to understand the realities behind the man and the conditions in which his USSR was forged. As Read quotes Khrushchev “We cannot regard Stalin's acts as the behaviour of a mad despot. He believed it was necessary to act this way in the interests of the party and the toiling masses, in the name of defending our revolutionary conquests. That is the tragedy”.
Read begins with something of a review of approaches to Stalin's life and reign noting that relatively little is known of his early years and a large part of what has been written about him is based on here-say, speculation, unreliable sources and flights of psychoanalytical fancy. He also notes the dominance of Trotskyite histories and commentaries whose work has also been recruited by Western historians to give strength to their anti-Soviet bias. The tendency for biographers and historians to focus on the 'familiar characteristics' attributed to Stalin 'psychosis, paranoia, lust for power, cruelty' “distract attention from the vital, central fact of his revolutionary commitment”.
The early life of Stalin as a grass-roots, rabble rousing, street fighting revolutionary living with the workers and sharing their struggle as an active street agitator and producer of revolutionary propaganda contrast with the more intellectual and perhaps bourgeois lifestyle of other Bolsheviks like Lenin whose contributions were more theoretical based than from the work place. While Stalin tends to be someone classically presented as ingratiating himself towards Lenin, Read presents a much more complex character but one who is primarily motivated by a hatred of the ruling class, a hatred of oppression and poverty of the class system and as having a burning revolutionary activist desire to change the system – while holding Lenin in the deepest respect. It is as a loyal and proven activist and organiser that Stalin rises through the party hierarchy ruffling the feathers of his socially more bourgeois revolutionary colleagues as he goes with his crudeness, rudeness and street fighting nature. Read notes that Stalin if anything is more militant than Lenin thinking in terms of a “workers and peasants revolution conducted by themselves” with “no references to the intervention of radical intellectuals let alone liberals” which could help to explain the later fates of many from the latter social niches. This is perhaps a key observation of the book that Stalin saw a revolutionary period as one requiring an iron hand wielding violence and brutality as being key to wiping away the old order and asserting the authority of the new as well as maintaining the new revolutionary order and defending it from counter revolutionaries. From this perspective Stalin can perhaps be seen as a scapegoat for unavoidable revolutionary terror. While he was not alone among Bolsheviks in instigating and advocating scorched earth policies against those deemed class enemies, or enemies of the revolution, hiss willingness to pursue such policies, and clear vision for their need, make him an uncomfortable figure for liberal progressives who desire a cuddly peaceful and perhaps fanciful change where the ruling class surrender without bloodshed and terror. Trotsky's aversion to revolutionary terror dates only from the time the instruments of terror were no longer in his hands but his acceptance and identification in the West as the true theorist of post-Soviet revolutionary utopia have cleansed him of the sins that Stalin has been left to carry on behalf of all Bolsheviks. Despite the above it is interesting to note that Stalin, both in his administrative positions in the party and as editor of Pravda, was supportive of airing the views of all sections of the party to the extent of going against Lenin's wishes in defending the right of opposing voices and positions to be heard.
Another myth tackled by Read is the idea of Stalin eliminating his closest friends and allies. “Contrary to popular belief, Stalin did not touch his closest allies. By 1922 he had found an entourage of like-minded, 'get-things-done-and-sort-out-the-detail-later' Bolsheviks like himself” consisting of civil war associates and Georgians. Those who were eliminated tended to be those with whom “enduring enmities had formed”. While Read argues that the positive attributes applied to Lenin by Stalin at Lenin's funeral oration were positive revolutionary attributes Stalin saw in himself, and while Stalin went on to model himself on his understanding of Lenin, this was done at this stage not as part of a construction of a personality cult but as revolutionary continuity. Read also challenges the idea that Stalin manipulated his way into leadership showing rather that he had the support of “average party workers” and won the Central Committee “on the basis of his policies and, in time, on the concrete results they brought”. Stalin's request to be relieved of his positions on more than one occasion also appear less the dramatic cynical acts that they are usually presented to be and more genuine moves for then sound reasons.
Stalin's position was bolstered during the 14th and 15th Party Congresses. His skills as an orator and organiser saw him use Trotsky's own words to effectively hang him out to dry. While Trotsky condemned Stalin as the “candidate for the post of gravedigger of the revolution”, Stalin replied with lengthy self-criticism, noting that he had previously asked to be relieved of his positions (which Trotsky had then opposed) and went on to quote at length from Trotsky's own pre-1917 anti-Lenin polemics. Stalin emerged as victor having successfully presented his position as that of the centre and as the sensible moderate committed to defending and strengthening the gains of the revolution.
Firmly in the driving seat Stalin used policies of 'war communism' to kick-start collectivisation and industrialisation. Collectivisation was essential to free workers for industrial and to feed them. While costly in human terms collectivisation was successful in production terms during the 5-Year Plan. A labour intensive process of industrialisation saw the industrial workforce mushroom from 11 million to 22 million in five years. However, the need to transform the USSR was seen in terms of serving the interest of the 'world proletariat' rather than Russia as commonly assumed. The rapid transformation of society and Stalin's desire to do away with pre-revolutionary and politically suspect specialists replacing them with revolutionary proletarian experts was to demonstrate the unstoppable nature of revolutionary change in the face of stagnating capitalism.
Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of the book in relation to popular opinion is the argument that neither the famine during collectivisation nor many of the deaths in the Gulag were deliberate and planned acts of mass murder. While maintaining that the results of both were horrific Read argues, presenting evidence in his support, that they were acts criminal by negligence rather than by intent. I am sure this is a point where many people will switch off (if they have not already after heretical challenges to their deeply held beliefs of the nature of the past), however, the material evidence presented by Read is striking and worth reviewing. The 'Show Trials' and terror purges are also dealt with but rather than focusing solely on the injustices, kangaroo courts, lack of due process etc. (all of which are well known) Read focuses on the impetus for the actions, the backgrounds of those caught up in the purges and the true reasons for their fall. What emerges is a combination of a carefully orchestrated campaign to mop up long standing politically suspect enemies, a reactive campaign against enemies perceived as responsible for the death of Kirov and a proactive campaign against a feared fifth column allied to Trotsky of White counter-revolutionaries and Western / fascist anti-Bolsheviks (as well as a spot of localised fiefdom building and freelance unauthorised score settling and Kurtzian deviationism).
The struggle for a new proletarian cultural revolution is also examined. The early years of the 1917 revolution are rightly celebrated as opening up a space for a revolution on the cultural front with the avant-garde challenging taste, tradition, class and accepted morals and norms. While revolutionary and exciting to many to some the intellectual and avant-garde nature of much of the output did not meet the demands of traditional proletarian entertainment. A need was identified for Socialist Realism based on the party point of view, class principles and perhaps key in Stalin's mind a need for art to be easily understood by ordinary people. The perhaps unintentional elitism of some post 1917 works helped to drive a new campaign for a true revolutionary peoples culture. The development of a individual Soviet style 'celebrity culture' of heroes and heroines exemplified by proletarian achievers such as aviators, explorers, scientists and ordinary workers proved successful. As Read notes, unlike their hedonistic capitalist counterparts “Soviet celebrities had actually done something”. While the camps swallowed and killed some artists and the state suppressed and criticised others, it was a time of mass cultural consumption with artists making mainstream connections. Stalin's view of the writer as an 'engineer of the human soul' gave them a precarious but Nietzschean position in the new society with their role seen as assisting the party in creating a new culture and consciousness essential to the establishment of Communism. By the same token the potential subversive possibilities for an engineer of the soul were understood by both sides. As Mandelstrom, a high profile victim of artistic repression, noted “Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”.
It is highly unlikely that without Stalin's 'war communism' approach to the industrialisation of the USSR the country would have been in a position to resist European fascism. It is also likely that without the debilitating purge of some ten percent of the Soviet officer corps, especially Tukhachevsky, the USSR would have been in an even better position to resist the Nazi invasion. From the early 1930's Stalin was egar to pursue a policy of collective security in the face of a common threat. To this end he made overtures to the USA concerning Japanese expansionism and then to anti-fascist leaning states. Stalin was ready to go to war in defence of Czechoslovakia with partial mobilisation and overtures to Praha to this effect but was undermined by the Munich Agreement which Stalin took as confirmation that the West was more concerned with stemming the 'communist contagion' than wiping out fascism. From Stalin's point of view the Baltic States and Poland were awash with class enemies, nationalists, property owners, White Guards, small hostile armies and probable enemies in the coming conflict with Germany. Stalin expected a German invasion in 1942 and saw the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact as a means of buying time while preparing for the inevitable. Given previous British hostility to the USSR Stalin suspected British warnings of the impending attack as an attempt to lure him into premature conflict with Germany to take the heat off London. When the Nazis did strike it only surprised Stalin in that he thought Hitler had missed his window of opportunity for 1941. Recognising his mistake Stalin seems to have expected his colleagues to have relieved him of his position at the very least as a result of the disaster of the invasion. However, Read states “What stopped the delegation from arresting or sacking Stalin was not his power or ability to summon guards or whatever, it was the delegates support for him”. Importantly it was not Russia that was seen to be at danger of being lost it was “the danger of loosing Lenin's revolutionary inheritance that weighed on Stalin's mind” illustrated by Stalin's desperation in the early disastrous days of the war commiserating to his colleagues that “Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it up!”. After a mini purge and the scapegoating of the generals who had tried to warn Stalin of the impending doom Stalin took control of all major and many minor military decisions. However, unlike Hitler he generally left his capable generals to make on the ground decisions. The strategic mass evacuation of factories to new locations beyond the Urals and destruction of anything unmoveable which could be of use to the advancing enemy began to set the ground for the fight back.
While the state of total war employed coercion where necessary it also appealed successfully to the Soviet people to do their patriotic duty if defence of the Motherland. At the same time Stalin became adept at diplomatic (and not so diplomatic) outreach to his enemies enemies. Read describes this nicely as “An awkward relationship between the cynical, dictatorial, anti-imperialism of the USR and the hypocritical, liberal oligarchic imperialism of the North Atlantic” yet one which had to be worked out, and was, in the cause of defeating a common enemy of humanity. The development of these alliances and the basis for their success form another excellent part of Reads research, as with the turn of the tide against fascism doe the turn of discussion towards the post-war world order. Especially interesting, if not actually new, is the reiteration of Stalin's desire for security rather than expansion and domination. This is well illustrated with the example of Finland and the intransigence of the Poles (perhaps understandable if poorly judged in the circumstances they found themselves) in the face of genuine Soviet concerns about their own security. Read also presents interesting evidence concerning the Soviet position during the Warsaw Uprising which is bound to infuriate all and sundry if only for the embarrassing reason he may be correct.
With the allied victory Stalin had more pressing problems on his plate that the propagation of communism. Having borne the brunt of the destruction and fighting, in terms of both human and material losses, reconstruction and the need for security to ensure there was no repeat of 1941 were the key concerns of the USSR. There is no evidence that Stalin was intent on a power grab, however, communist prestige in Western Europe was high, while traditional elites were tarred by their association with and appeasement of fascism. Meanwhile the USA, its homeland intact, industry booming, emerged as a winner from the war and the sole holder of nuclear weapons which it used as much to threaten the USR as to end the war with Japan. With the new hawkish Truman replacing the conciliatory Roosevelt, American policy making moved from the Yalta axioms of cooperation and agreement with the USSR to the Riga axioms which viewed the Soviet Union as bent on world domination and formed the basis for the renewed Cold War. Why this did not need to be the route that was taken, why it was, and the effect it had on internal Soviet policies, on Soviet zones of occupation and influence, and on Soviet foreign policy is examined by Read. This is an especially interesting area of post-war history and Stalin's role in it, only key aspects are examined, together with some tantalising 'what if?' scenarios – especially with regard to the German and Polish questions and the status of Berlin. This period has been the subject of some very good recent research and publications by other authors whose work is referenced and is worth study.
Given the level of destruction – economic, social and material – the speed of reconstruction and recovery of the USSR was impressive (if at considerable human and environmental expense). Within years the USSR had developed its own atomic bomb and was in a position to field a credible deterrent to the threat from the USA. On the international front Soviet allied states were mushrooming. The one key error of the period was the failure of the USSR to prevent the American led occupation of South Korea under the auspices of the UN. With the gradual economic recovery of the USSR came a reassertion by Stalin of authority and reconfirmation of the direction of the country. Read notes “Unlimited power may have been grounded in fear (…) and supported by an apparatus of terror, but it was enhanced by the existence of genuine mass devotion, encouraged and nourished by an all embracing and extremely effective network of propaganda and censorship, capable of stifling any criticism”.
Quoting Molotov, Read records the increasing persecution mania of Stalin's final years “He was so overwrought, self-seekers had so irritated him and warn him down, had incited him against this person and that, - he had broken down”. It is in these final years that the accusation of base anti-Semitism are generally made against Stalin and it is no doubt another area where Read is likely to loose further readers who have heard him out this far as he suggests and illustrates how this 'commonly known fact' is also not what it seems. While anti-Semitism has long been closely entwined in a part of Russian Orthodox culture, in the same way it has in Christian culture generally, anti-Semitism was never a tenant of Bolshevism or the USSR. Rather the complex relationship between the USSR and Israel, especially as Israel became a client state of the USA, had profound repercussions for those in the USSR who had embraced Israel as a progressive and revolutionary state. Read notes that researchers have rejected the 'campaign against “cosmopolitanism” ' as simply an anti-Jewish campaign arguing that Stalin's motives were of “Realpolitik rather than visceral prejudice” and a minority of the accused in the 'Doctors Plot' were non-Jewish and many prominent Jews remained undisturbed in their positions. While the intricacies and niceties of why many more met their premature ends may not have much meaning to the victims, the motives behind the campaign, their effect and the spin given by the perpetrators and their opponents are historically important and Read's daring in challenging commonly held beliefs is the major strength of what is a remarkable and highly readable book. Ultimat
This is my book of the year. Think you know Stalin think again. Probably like many people my impression and knowledge of Stalin was based upon 'received opinion' which in the case of such a towering and controversial figure has been very much moulded by histories victors and those with specific ideological axes to grind. Time and again historians remind us that history tends to be written with a purpose and that purpose is often not simply to tell a verbatim account of events. In any case any verbatim account of events will depend upon the lenses through which they are viewed and the background and schooling of the writer. How these factors combine to affect writing on and scholarship of the USSR have determined and created a vast and contradictory library of knowledge which is at much at war with itself as the various sides were in the 1917-1990 First Cold War. The writing from this period, and after, is often highly weaponised and should be approached as potentially loaded and dangerous.
There is probably something in this book to shock, surprise and outrage everyone. I am sure some will write off the author as an apologist for one of recent histories classic monsters. However, for those who wish to get to grips with the enigma that is Stalin and for those who feel that if Stalin has not been made a scapegoat then at least the history we generally know is incomplete and unsatisfactory, then this is a great place to begin to understand the realities behind the man and the conditions in which his USSR was forged. As Read quotes Khrushchev “We cannot regard Stalin's acts as the behaviour of a mad despot. He believed it was necessary to act this way in the interests of the party and the toiling masses, in the name of defending our revolutionary conquests. That is the tragedy”.
Read begins with something of a review of approaches to Stalin's life and reign noting that relatively little is known of his early years and a large part of what has been written about him is based on here-say, speculation, unreliable sources and flights of psychoanalytical fancy. He also notes the dominance of Trotskyite histories and commentaries whose work has also been recruited by Western historians to give strength to their anti-Soviet bias. The tendency for biographers and historians to focus on the 'familiar characteristics' attributed to Stalin 'psychosis, paranoia, lust for power, cruelty' “distract attention from the vital, central fact of his revolutionary commitment”.
The early life of Stalin as a grass-roots, rabble rousing, street fighting revolutionary living with the workers and sharing their struggle as an active street agitator and producer of revolutionary propaganda contrast with the more intellectual and perhaps bourgeois lifestyle of other Bolsheviks like Lenin whose contributions were more theoretical based than from the work place. While Stalin tends to be someone classically presented as ingratiating himself towards Lenin, Read presents a much more complex character but one who is primarily motivated by a hatred of the ruling class, a hatred of oppression and poverty of the class system and as having a burning revolutionary activist desire to change the system – while holding Lenin in the deepest respect. It is as a loyal and proven activist and organiser that Stalin rises through the party hierarchy ruffling the feathers of his socially more bourgeois revolutionary colleagues as he goes with his crudeness, rudeness and street fighting nature. Read notes that Stalin if anything is more militant than Lenin thinking in terms of a “workers and peasants revolution conducted by themselves” with “no references to the intervention of radical intellectuals let alone liberals” which could help to explain the later fates of many from the latter social niches. This is perhaps a key observation of the book that Stalin saw a revolutionary period as one requiring an iron hand wielding violence and brutality as being key to wiping away the old order and asserting the authority of the new as well as maintaining the new revolutionary order and defending it from counter revolutionaries. From this perspective Stalin can perhaps be seen as a scapegoat for unavoidable revolutionary terror. While he was not alone among Bolsheviks in instigating and advocating scorched earth policies against those deemed class enemies, or enemies of the revolution, hiss willingness to pursue such policies, and clear vision for their need, make him an uncomfortable figure for liberal progressives who desire a cuddly peaceful and perhaps fanciful change where the ruling class surrender without bloodshed and terror. Trotsky's aversion to revolutionary terror dates only from the time the instruments of terror were no longer in his hands but his acceptance and identification in the West as the true theorist of post-Soviet revolutionary utopia have cleansed him of the sins that Stalin has been left to carry on behalf of all Bolsheviks. Despite the above it is interesting to note that Stalin, both in his administrative positions in the party and as editor of Pravda, was supportive of airing the views of all sections of the party to the extent of going against Lenin's wishes in defending the right of opposing voices and positions to be heard.
Another myth tackled by Read is the idea of Stalin eliminating his closest friends and allies. “Contrary to popular belief, Stalin did not touch his closest allies. By 1922 he had found an entourage of like-minded, 'get-things-done-and-sort-out-the-detail-later' Bolsheviks like himself” consisting of civil war associates and Georgians. Those who were eliminated tended to be those with whom “enduring enmities had formed”. While Read argues that the positive attributes applied to Lenin by Stalin at Lenin's funeral oration were positive revolutionary attributes Stalin saw in himself, and while Stalin went on to model himself on his understanding of Lenin, this was done at this stage not as part of a construction of a personality cult but as revolutionary continuity. Read also challenges the idea that Stalin manipulated his way into leadership showing rather that he had the support of “average party workers” and won the Central Committee “on the basis of his policies and, in time, on the concrete results they brought”. Stalin's request to be relieved of his positions on more than one occasion also appear less the dramatic cynical acts that they are usually presented to be and more genuine moves for then sound reasons.
Stalin's position was bolstered during the 14th and 15th Party Congresses. His skills as an orator and organiser saw him use Trotsky's own words to effectively hang him out to dry. While Trotsky condemned Stalin as the “candidate for the post of gravedigger of the revolution”, Stalin replied with lengthy self-criticism, noting that he had previously asked to be relieved of his positions (which Trotsky had then opposed) and went on to quote at length from Trotsky's own pre-1917 anti-Lenin polemics. Stalin emerged as victor having successfully presented his position as that of the centre and as the sensible moderate committed to defending and strengthening the gains of the revolution.
Firmly in the driving seat Stalin used policies of 'war communism' to kick-start collectivisation and industrialisation. Collectivisation was essential to free workers for industrial and to feed them. While costly in human terms collectivisation was successful in production terms during the 5-Year Plan. A labour intensive process of industrialisation saw the industrial workforce mushroom from 11 million to 22 million in five years. However, the need to transform the USSR was seen in terms of serving the interest of the 'world proletariat' rather than Russia as commonly assumed. The rapid transformation of society and Stalin's desire to do away with pre-revolutionary and politically suspect specialists replacing them with revolutionary proletarian experts was to demonstrate the unstoppable nature of revolutionary change in the face of stagnating capitalism.
Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of the book in relation to popular opinion is the argument that neither the famine during collectivisation nor many of the deaths in the Gulag were deliberate and planned acts of mass murder. While maintaining that the results of both were horrific Read argues, presenting evidence in his support, that they were acts criminal by negligence rather than by intent. I am sure this is a point where many people will switch off (if they have not already after heretical challenges to their deeply held beliefs of the nature of the past), however, the material evidence presented by Read is striking and worth reviewing. The 'Show Trials' and terror purges are also dealt with but rather than focusing solely on the injustices, kangaroo courts, lack of due process etc. (all of which are well known) Read focuses on the impetus for the actions, the backgrounds of those caught up in the purges and the true reasons for their fall. What emerges is a combination of a carefully orchestrated campaign to mop up long standing politically suspect enemies, a reactive campaign against enemies perceived as responsible for the death of Kirov and a proactive campaign against a feared fifth column allied to Trotsky of White counter-revolutionaries and Western / fascist anti-Bolsheviks (as well as a spot of localised fiefdom building and freelance unauthorised score settling and Kurtzian deviationism).
The struggle for a new proletarian cultural revolution is also examined. The early years of the 1917 revolution are rightly celebrated as opening up a space for a revolution on the cultural front with the avant-garde challenging taste, tradition, class and accepted morals and norms. While revolutionary and exciting to many to some the intellectual and avant-garde nature of much of the output did not meet the demands of traditional proletarian entertainment. A need was identified for Socialist Realism based on the party point of view, class principles and perhaps key in Stalin's mind a need for art to be easily understood by ordinary people. The perhaps unintentional elitism of some post 1917 works helped to drive a new campaign for a true revolutionary peoples culture. The development of a individual Soviet style 'celebrity culture' of heroes and heroines exemplified by proletarian achievers such as aviators, explorers, scientists and ordinary workers proved successful. As Read notes, unlike their hedonistic capitalist counterparts “Soviet celebrities had actually done something”. While the camps swallowed and killed some artists and the state suppressed and criticised others, it was a time of mass cultural consumption with artists making mainstream connections. Stalin's view of the writer as an 'engineer of the human soul' gave them a precarious but Nietzschean position in the new society with their role seen as assisting the party in creating a new culture and consciousness essential to the establishment of Communism. By the same token the potential subversive possibilities for an engineer of the soul were understood by both sides. As Mandelstrom, a high profile victim of artistic repression, noted “Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”.
It is highly unlikely that without Stalin's 'war communism' approach to the industrialisation of the USSR the country would have been in a position to resist European fascism. It is also likely that without the debilitating purge of some ten percent of the Soviet officer corps, especially Tukhachevsky, the USSR would have been in an even better position to resist the Nazi invasion. From the early 1930's Stalin was egar to pursue a policy of collective security in the face of a common threat. To this end he made overtures to the USA concerning Japanese expansionism and then to anti-fascist leaning states. Stalin was ready to go to war in defence of Czechoslovakia with partial mobilisation and overtures to Praha to this effect but was undermined by the Munich Agreement which Stalin took as confirmation that the West was more concerned with stemming the 'communist contagion' than wiping out fascism. From Stalin's point of view the Baltic States and Poland were awash with class enemies, nationalists, property owners, White Guards, small hostile armies and probable enemies in the coming conflict with Germany. Stalin expected a German invasion in 1942 and saw the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact as a means of buying time while preparing for the inevitable. Given previous British hostility to the USSR Stalin suspected British warnings of the impending attack as an attempt to lure him into premature conflict with Germany to take the heat off London. When the Nazis did strike it only surprised Stalin in that he thought Hitler had missed his window of opportunity for 1941. Recognising his mistake Stalin seems to have expected his colleagues to have relieved him of his position at the very least as a result of the disaster of the invasion. However, Read states “What stopped the delegation from arresting or sacking Stalin was not his power or ability to summon guards or whatever, it was the delegates support for him”. Importantly it was not Russia that was seen to be at danger of being lost it was “the danger of loosing Lenin's revolutionary inheritance that weighed on Stalin's mind” illustrated by Stalin's desperation in the early disastrous days of the war commiserating to his colleagues that “Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it up!”. After a mini purge and the scapegoating of the generals who had tried to warn Stalin of the impending doom Stalin took control of all major and many minor military decisions. However, unlike Hitler he generally left his capable generals to make on the ground decisions. The strategic mass evacuation of factories to new locations beyond the Urals and destruction of anything unmoveable which could be of use to the advancing enemy began to set the ground for the fight back.
While the state of total war employed coercion where necessary it also appealed successfully to the Soviet people to do their patriotic duty if defence of the Motherland. At the same time Stalin became adept at diplomatic (and not so diplomatic) outreach to his enemies enemies. Read describes this nicely as “An awkward relationship between the cynical, dictatorial, anti-imperialism of the USR and the hypocritical, liberal oligarchic imperialism of the North Atlantic” yet one which had to be worked out, and was, in the cause of defeating a common enemy of humanity. The development of these alliances and the basis for their success form another excellent part of Reads research, as with the turn of the tide against fascism doe the turn of discussion towards the post-war world order. Especially interesting, if not actually new, is the reiteration of Stalin's desire for security rather than expansion and domination. This is well illustrated with the example of Finland and the intransigence of the Poles (perhaps understandable if poorly judged in the circumstances they found themselves) in the face of genuine Soviet concerns about their own security. Read also presents interesting evidence concerning the Soviet position during the Warsaw Uprising which is bound to infuriate all and sundry if only for the embarrassing reason he may be correct.
With the allied victory Stalin had more pressing problems on his plate that the propagation of communism. Having borne the brunt of the destruction and fighting, in terms of both human and material losses, reconstruction and the need for security to ensure there was no repeat of 1941 were the key concerns of the USSR. There is no evidence that Stalin was intent on a power grab, however, communist prestige in Western Europe was high, while traditional elites were tarred by their association with and appeasement of fascism. Meanwhile the USA, its homeland intact, industry booming, emerged as a winner from the war and the sole holder of nuclear weapons which it used as much to threaten the USR as to end the war with Japan. With the new hawkish Truman replacing the conciliatory Roosevelt, American policy making moved from the Yalta axioms of cooperation and agreement with the USSR to the Riga axioms which viewed the Soviet Union as bent on world domination and formed the basis for the renewed Cold War. Why this did not need to be the route that was taken, why it was, and the effect it had on internal Soviet policies, on Soviet zones of occupation and influence, and on Soviet foreign policy is examined by Read. This is an especially interesting area of post-war history and Stalin's role in it, only key aspects are examined, together with some tantalising 'what if?' scenarios – especially with regard to the German and Polish questions and the status of Berlin. This period has been the subject of some very good recent research and publications by other authors whose work is referenced and is worth study.
Given the level of destruction – economic, social and material – the speed of reconstruction and recovery of the USSR was impressive (if at considerable human and environmental expense). Within years the USSR had developed its own atomic bomb and was in a position to field a credible deterrent to the threat from the USA. On the international front Soviet allied states were mushrooming. The one key error of the period was the failure of the USSR to prevent the American led occupation of South Korea under the auspices of the UN. With the gradual economic recovery of the USSR came a reassertion by Stalin of authority and reconfirmation of the direction of the country. Read notes “Unlimited power may have been grounded in fear (…) and supported by an apparatus of terror, but it was enhanced by the existence of genuine mass devotion, encouraged and nourished by an all embracing and extremely effective network of propaganda and censorship, capable of stifling any criticism”.
Quoting Molotov, Read records the increasing persecution mania of Stalin's final years “He was so overwrought, self-seekers had so irritated him and warn him down, had incited him against this person and that, - he had broken down”. It is in these final years that the accusation of base anti-Semitism are generally made against Stalin and it is no doubt another area where Read is likely to loose further readers who have heard him out this far as he suggests and illustrates how this 'commonly known fact' is also not what it seems. While anti-Semitism has long been closely entwined in a part of Russian Orthodox culture, in the same way it has in Christian culture generally, anti-Semitism was never a tenant of Bolshevism or the USSR. Rather the complex relationship between the USSR and Israel, especially as Israel became a client state of the USA, had profound repercussions for those in the USSR who had embraced Israel as a progressive and revolutionary state. Read notes that researchers have rejected the 'campaign against “cosmopolitanism” ' as simply an anti-Jewish campaign arguing that Stalin's motives were of “Realpolitik rather than visceral prejudice” and a minority of the accused in the 'Doctors Plot' were non-Jewish and many prominent Jews remained undisturbed in their positions. While the intricacies and niceties of why many more met their premature ends may not have much meaning to the victims, the motives behind the campaign, their effect and the spin given by the perpetrators and their opponents are historically important and Read's daring in challenging commonly held beliefs is the major strength of what is a remarkable and highly readable book. Ultimat
March 14, 2024
This book is sooo good if you want to know more about Stalin. At some points Read ideology of Stalin didn’t really make sense to me, but overall the book is amazing to get insight on Stalin and his terror
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