Leon Trotsky

Background

Trotsky was born in 1879 into a relatively well-off Jewish family of independent farmers. At the turn of the century, he joined a revolutionary group, but he was soon exiled to Siberia because of his political radicalism. In 1902, following a daring escape, he joined Lenin and other Marxists in London.

Relationship with Lenin

Trotsky’s early relationship with Lenin was turbulent and in 1903 he sided with the Mensheviks, rejecting Lenin’s belief in a disciplined, secretive, professional party. These struggles, spanning a variety of ideological issues, continued until 1917. However, when he returned to Russia in the summer of 1917, he joined the Communists and was able to work closely with Lenin. Throughout the Civil War, Trotsky and Lenin saw eye-to-eye over the controversial issue of restoring discipline in the Red Army. In government, Trotsky acted as Lenin’s principle lieutenant and despite occasional disagreements, Lenin was happy to proclaim that there was “no better Communist”. Lenin singled Trotsky out as “the most able man in the present Central Committee” in his Testament. However, he also noted Trotsky’s “too far-reaching self-confidence”, a character trait that many others saw as arrogance.

Joseph Stalin

Background

Stalin, who claimed to be the leader of the world proletariat, was in fact born into a family of Georgian peasants in Gori in 1879. He was educated in a local religious school because his parents wanted him to become a priest. On leaving the seminary, he continued his spiritual education in Tbilisi, the largest and most cosmopolitan city in Georgia, and it is here that Stalin converted to Marxism. He joined the Communist Party in 1902, and in 1912 he was made a member of the Central Committee. Throughout this time, he was continually in trouble with the police, notably for raiding banks to acquire funds for the Party. Activities such as this saw him exiled to Siberia, although he escaped no fewer than five times.

Relationship with Lenin

Stalin’s first recorded meeting with Lenin occurred in 1905. In the period prior to the October Revolution, Lenin came to rely on Stalin’s administrative ability and loyalty, and on one occasion even described him as “that wonderful Georgian”. Prior to Lenin’s illness, Stalin was careful to back him on controversial issues. Historian E.H. Carr comments that the “claim to be nothing more than a faithful follower and disciple of Lenin was not altogether opposed. He had no creed of his own.” Nonetheless, once Lenin became ill, Stalin began to oppose him. Lenin was highly critical of Stalin in his Testament, particularly following a disagreement between Stalin and Lenin’s wife. He expressed concern that Stalin had “concentrated an enormous power in his hand” and did not always use it wisely. As a result, he demanded that the other senior members of the party think about a way of removing Stalin and finding someone more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades and less capricious to take his place. Lenin’s disapproval of Stalin is also evident in his last essay Better Fewer, But Better which was highly critical of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, of which Stalin was the Head. However, he also recognised that, along with Trotsky, he was one of the “most able” figures of the Central Committee.

Ideological Conflict – Views of the Left

NEP AND INDUSTRY: “the dictatorship of industry”

In 1921, following the famine and devastation of the Civil War, the NEP was accepted by all sections of the Party. However, by 1923 the economy had stabilised. This led Trotsky and other left-wing Communists to call a radical change in policy. The left of the Party argued that the NEP was both ideologically and economically misguided. It was ideologically wrong because it favoured the peasants and returned power to the capitalists at the expense of the working class. This was clearly a betrayal of the principles of the Revolution which was supposed to give power to the industrial workers. Economically, the NEP was failing to deliver industrial growth. The NEP had successfully stimulated agriculture, but conditions for workers were yet to improve and unemployment in the cities remained high.

To address these ideological and economic problems, left-wing economist Yevgeni Preobrazhensky proposed “squeezing” the peasants through heavy taxes. The profits raised from this taxation would be invested in heavy industry. Trotsky described this approach as “the dictatorship of industry”. The primary aim of this policy was to accelerate industrialisation at the expense of the wealthy peasants.

FUTURE OF THE REVOLUTION – “bureaucratic degeneration”

The left wing were concerned that the Communists had transformed from radical revolutionaries into government bureaucrats. They feared that bureaucrats who had joined the Party for the main purpose of getting well-paid jobs lacked the revolutionary spirit and commitment necessary to fight capitalism.

Leaders of the left wing set out this view in the Declaration of the Forty-Six (1923). The Declaration claimed that ordinary Party members had lost their power to the “bureaucratic apparatus”. Moreover, it stated that those who disagreed with Party policy were afraid to speak out because of the power wielded by this bureaucracy.

In later years, Trotsky claimed that the process of bureaucratisation had been accelerated by the Lenin Enrolment which admitted poorly educated workers into Party membership. Trotsky’s solution to the problem of “bureaucratic degeneration” was greater openness and democracy within the Communist Party. While Trotsky’s proposals were popular on the left wing, they were clearly threatening to the growing number of Communists with good jobs and powerful positions within the Party bureaucracy.

With the announcement of Stalin’s first Five Year Plan came the introduction of voluntary Collectivisation in December 1927. Small, backward peasant farms contributed to continued food shortages and famine (most recently 1927-1928) which highlighted the issues with agricultural production. Collectivisation aimed to unite inefficient farms into one productive collective farm in the form of a Toz, Sovkhoz or Kolkhoz. Stalin hoped that collective farming would be more productive
in terms of machinery as well as an effective way of creating surplus food for workers and trade. In addition to this, it was seen that collectivisation would socialise the peasantry and eliminate the wealthy Kulaks that believed in private ownership.

Though Stalin had high hopes for collectivisation, it was not popular with peasants as many ignored the call for voluntary collectivisation. As a result of this, in 1929 collectivisation was made compulsory causing outrage and rebellion among peasants. Peasants would burn crops, farmland and kill livestock so they wouldn’t have to work on collective farms. Consequently, another famine occurred in 1930 forcing Stalin to temporarily halt collectivisation.

As Stalin decided to re-start collectivisation in 1931, more resistance and again famine occurred. Between 1932-1933 famine spread throughout the USSR which significantly affected Ukraine where an estimated 5 million perished. Through the use of terror and propaganda Stalin blamed the Kulaks for continued famine and rural unrest. Furthermore, Stalin called for Kulaks to be “liquidated as a class”. By 1932 Stalin had “declared war” on the group and ordered for their execution or for them to be sent to the Gulag.

Despite continued resistance and unrest from peasants, by 1937 93% of land was collectivised. This increased by 1939 where 99% of land was collectivised and 90% of peasants lived on one of the 250,000 Kolkhoz.

As the First Five-Year Plan got underway, there was a wave of planning fervour or “target-mania”. The original targets set in the first plan were optimistic, but almost before it was begun targets were revised upwards. To many, these seemed hopelessly unachievable. Some historians have suggested that planning was more in the realms of socialist fantasy than rational calculation. Consequently, historian Alec Nove has argued, the Five Year Plans do not fully deserve the title “plans” at all. An economic plan, properly defined, carefully matches raw materials to production, and production to consumption. The first Five Year Plan, and its successors, made no attempt to do this. Rather, the government demanded production with no clear idea of how it was to be achieved or what was to be done with the materials produced. In this sense, it is more appropriate to refer Stalin’s economy as a “command economy” – a system based on a series of central orders – rather than as a “planned economy”.

The high targets placed enormous strain on the economy. Materials of all sorts were in short supply and there was intense competition to get hold of them. Materials and workers – shock brigades – were rushed into key industries to do certain jobs, often on the order of a senior party official, despite the fact that this left other areas short and waiting for supplies. At the regional and local levels, factories competed with each other for scare resources. Bribery and corruption were rife. Managers made illegal deals in their desperation to get the parts or supplies they needed to fulfil their targets. Some were known to hi-jack lorries and ambush trains to get supplies intended for other plants. Bottlenecks appeared everywhere due to shortages of materials and the inadequacy of the transport system. The railways could not cope with what they were expected to transport: it soon became clear that the planners had not invested enough in track or rolling stock.

The net result of this was twofold:

1. In some parts of the economy there was underproduction because factories were held up by shortages of materials. In other parts there was overproduction as factories rushed to exceed their targets.

2. There was a great deal of wastage because:

a. Overproduction created thousands of parts that other industries did not want.
b. Much of the output was sub-standard, such as lorry tyres that lasted for only a few weeks.

What made matters worse was that few managers or officials were prepared to admit anything was wrong. They did not want to be accused of sabotaging the plans or criticising the party. So mistakes were covered up and problems were left unresolved. It was all buried in the colossal amount of paperwork that flowed around the USSR. All that mattered to managers and officials at different levels was that they could show they had achieved targets, whether this was real or invented. In fact, there were extravagant claims of over-fulfilment in many areas. This seemed to confirm that the system was working and discouraged others from speaking out about problems. Of course, not all the mistakes could be covered up and somebody had to be blamed. Class enemies were ready to hand and Stalin was not slow to use this political tool in the same way as he had in the collectivisation drive. The industrial equivalent of the kulak was the “bourgeois specialist”. These were the old-pre 1917 managers, engineers and technical staff who had survived the NEP in important jobs because of their skills and abilities. Now they were identified as saboteurs who were deliberately causing hold-ups, breakdowns and general problems in the supply industries. They were uncovered and imprisoned. Show trials were held to hammer home the point to other managers.

Case Study: How was Magnitogorsk built?

In many ways, the city of Magnitogorsk represents the best and worst of the First Five Year Plan. Stalin’s planners aimed to build a steelworks – and an entire city – from scratch, in an uninhabited part of Russia that was rich in iron ore. A quarter of a million workers were transported to the “magnetic mountain” and instructed to create Russia’s largest steel factory. In 1929, planners commissioned a radical German architect to design a utopian city where workers would be housed in clean, modern accommodation. Thousands of “shock workers” volunteered to take part in the visionary project. The contrast between the vision and the reality was stark. When workers arrived they discovered that few houses were actually built. The majority of workers lived in mud huts, wooden shacks and tents, with no heating or sanitation. Indeed, as late as 1932, construction of the workers’ accommodation was still pending. Conditions were so hard that on average, workers left Magnitogorsk to find new work after eighty-two days.
Nonetheless, the 40,000 prison workers and a hard core of dedicated volunteers miraculously turned desert grasslands into one of Russia’s major industrial centres. Some workers were so dedicated that the worked double shifts, and even through the night, in order to create a modern industrial miracle. The vision of Magnitogorsk was to build a modern industrial society in which workers lived and worked as part of an ideal community. However, in reality, the ideal community was never constructed, and the steelworks was created largely by the slave labour of Stalin’s political prisoners.

Punishments

Not all workers responded to the propaganda campaigns, and measures were introduced to deal with slackers. The fear of being accused of sabotage and sent to a gulag encouraged workers to carry out their tasks obediently. There was also a strict code of labour discipline with tough punishments:

• Absenteeism was punished by fines, loss of ration cards or dismissal. By 1940 it had become a crime and a prison sentence was given for second offences.
• Workers had to carry labour books, which recorded their jobs and unfavourable comments about them. A bad record could lose a worker food rations or lead to imprisonment.

Women in the Labour Force

Women dominated some professions particularly medicine and school teaching. The less well educated, especially tough ex-peasant women, became labourers or factory workers. Sarah Davies’ survey of women workers in Leningrad in 1935, showed that women workers in the city made up 44% of the workforce but were likely to be paid less, were less literate and less involved in political and technical education than their male counterparts. Their chances of reaching the top were limited. There were only four women head doctors in hospitals, even though 50-60% of all doctors were women.

The Trial of the Twenty-One (1938)

The trial of Bukharin and his “accomplices” was the last of the great Moscow show trials. Once again, the defendants were accused of attempting to overthrow socialism and of the murder of Kirov. However, in this final trial Stalin went further, and Bukharin was personally charged with attempting to assassinate Lenin. Prior to the trial, Bukharin tried to prove his loyalty to Stalin. But Bukharin’s efforts were futile. In contrast to previous defendants, he was never tortured. Rather, Stalin threatened to execute his wife and his newborn baby.

The trial was extraordinarily dramatic. Vyshinsky accused Bukharin and his co-defendants of being a “foul-smelling heap of human garbage”, and he described Bukharin specifically as “a damnable cross of a fox and a swine”. Bukharin was sentenced to death, but continued to hope for mercy. He wrote to Stalin volunteering to go to America where he “would smash Trotsky’s face in” but Bukharin was shot. According to contemporary reports, “Bukharin died with curses against Stalin on his lips. They died standing up – not grovelling on the cellar floor, weeping for mercy like Zinoviev and Kamenev.”

Widening the Terror 1937 + Purging the party:

In the spring of 1937 Stalin made it clear that he thought traitors and spies had infiltrated the party at all levels. He encouraged lower-ranking party members to criticise and denounce those in higher positions. This resulted in a flood of accusations as members denounced each other to get their jobs or settle old scores, others to deflect criticism away from themselves.

PURGING THE ARMY

In 1937 it was the turn of the armed forces. Stalin was convinced that he could not count on the army to follow his policies. The leaders of the army were tough and difficult to intimidate. Marshall Tukhachevsky was the hero of the Civil War, but during this period he had come into conflict with Stalin. Stalin claimed that the army was plotting to overthrow him. Tukhachevsky and other generals had confessions beaten out of them (Tukhachevsky’s written confession actually had blood stains on it) and were then executed. The NKVD then worked its way through the rest of the armed forces to devastating effect. That Stalin should risk wiping out his best commanders when the prospect of war loomed is a powerful indication of how far the terror had gone. It was estimated that up to 90% of Russia’s generals were purged.

Religion under Lenin and Stalin

Anti-Religious Policy under Lenin

“Worshipping any god is ideological necrophilia,” Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, once wrote to Maxim Gorky. Crushing religion generally and Orthodoxy, in particular, was a central part of their program. Nonetheless, the Bolsheviks never banned the Church entirely “only” oppressing it instead. To begin with, they deprived priests of the right to vote and closed several monasteries and cathedrals.
In 1918 the Bolsheviks introduced the Decree on the Separation of the Church from the State and School from the Church. This banned the teaching of any religion in any educational institution.

During the Civil War many churches were closed and their property was confiscated. Anti-religion pressure groups designed to encourage atheism were formed such as the League of the Militant Godless. This group used all means – including lectures, newspaperandfilms – to inform Soviet citizens that religion was a harmful leftover of the past. By 1941, the League had enlisted around 3.5 million members.

In 1922, Lenin ordered the confiscation of church valuables all over Russia under the pretext of helping the hungry. The violent confiscations led to conflict. Some 2,000 priests and others who sought to protect churches were shot.

Leningrad Affair, 1948
Purge of Zhdanov’s friends and colleagues after his premature death in 1948 due to his alcoholism. Zhdanov had been the head of the Leningrad party.

Domestic impact of “the Great Patriotic War”, 1941-45

POLITICAL

The war had very little impact on the structure of
government in Russia. During the conflict, Stalin became
the chairman of the State Defence Committee, which had absolute control over the lives of Soviet citizens. He also took the role of supreme commander of the military, just as Nicholas II had done during the First World War. The difference was the Stalin actually took advice from his advisers and even relied on others, deemed to be military experts, to make key strategic decisions. In fact, it would be incorrect to assume that the government became even more totalitarian. That would have been difficult given the high degree of control already in place. Besides, all governments of those countries directly involved in the war passed measures that gave them total authority. Unsurprisingly, until his death, Stalin retained the two key political posts in Russia; those of head of government and party secretary.

The composition of the Politburo also remained the same. In 1948, the prominent members included Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Andreyev, Zhdanov (the man being groomed to be Stalin’s successor) and Khrushchev. Despite the extremely high number of war casualties, the numbers joining the Communist Party actually increased during the war from 3.76 million in 1941 to 5.8 million by 1945. Much of this was due to additions from the military who were
rewarded for their gallantry with official party membership. By the time of the nineteenth party congress, called in 1952 (for the first time in thirteen years), party numbers had declined, although this did not seem to affect the main function of the party. It continued as an administrative tool, especially when it came to economic affairs.

The NKVD was very active during and after the war. It was involved in the policing of prisons and the deportation of national minorities while the conflict ensued. The secret police were especially harsh on individuals from the Balkans, Chechens, Karachans and Crimean Tartars, all of whom were accused of collaborating with the Nazis. After the conflict, the NKVD reverted to purging the party and other groups of dissidents. Of special note was their involvement in the resolution of the Leningrad affair, which resulted in over 200 supporters of Zhdanov being purged.

It has been argued that of all of the wars Russia had fought in the 100 years previously, the Second World War had the least effect politically, partly because it was one of the major wars of the period which Russia actually won. Russia emerged with the losses of 1918 restored to her. All the lands in eastern Europe which she had been forced to give up, now became part of a new Red Empire.

ECONOMIC

German forces quickly occupied a large part of Russian territory, and by 1942, they had gained control of one third of Russia’s industry and agriculture. At the same time, Russian labour was being conscripted into the armed forces. Both of these facts led to a significant downturn in production during the war. In 1942 Russia’s industry was producing only 59% of its 1940 output. The government had a huge challenge in addressing the damage to the industrial and rural infrastructure. Much physical damage was caused both by the German military through shelling and by Stalin’s scorched earth policy. Factories, production plants, mines, dams, roads, bridges and the railways were all badly affected. Overall, it is believed that 70,000 villages, 32,000 factories and 65,000km of railway were destroyed as a result of the war. Such physical damage was made worse by the fact that during the war industrial enterprises had to be relocated to the Urals, Volga basin and Central Asia to be protected. However, these were not necessarily the best areas for the organisation of efficient and effective production. Also, many factories had to be reconverted from munitions production back to their original function. All of this was a costly business, especially given that the government ran a command economy and was therefore responsible for all industrial enterprise.

The Soviet government’s reconstruction programme revolved around a fourth Five Year Plan (1946-50). The specific aim of this was to get the Soviet economy back to growth levels achieved immediately before the war. The plan would then be followed by two others, which would accelerate the development of heavy industry. As with the first three Five-Year Plans, the production of consumer goods was neglected. Interestingly, the targets set by the fourth plan were achieved after three years, way ahead of schedule. This was due to a number of reasons including:

• The availability of “free” labour (up to 4 million prisoners of war, Soviet prisoners and conscript labour)
• Unilateral trade agreements • External financial aid (from the United Nations, the USA in the form of lend-lease, Britain and Sweden)
• The commitment of the Russian people; ordinary Russian workers continued to labour for excessively long hours and under very challenging conditions to increase production and productivity in all of the staple industries.

However, there were a number of weaknesses in Stalin’s post-war economic strategy:

• The biggest flop was his continuation of “gargantuan” projects. Great amounts of capital were ploughed into schemes such as the Volga-Don Canal but with very little economic return.
• Agriculture also suffered, mainly through neglect. The war years had seen a reversion to a kind of small-scale ownership of land plots and a crumbling of some collective farms. Those who acquired private plots were soon hit by exorbitant taxes. The collectives suffered from shortages of labour and materials. The inevitable consequence was a famine in 1947 and rural unrest.
• Khrushchev, as minister for agriculture, attempted to resolve some of the problems through farm amalgamation (joining farms together to make bigger farm units to share costs and raise production), but this had a limited impact.

Czechoslovakia

Like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia was created as a new state in 1920.
Initially it consisted of Bohemia-Moravia; Slovakia and Ruthenia. Czechoslovakia was a multinational state and consisted of:

• 6.5 million Czechs
• 2.5 million Slovaks
• 3 million Germans
• 700,000 Hungarians
• 500,000 Ruthenians
• 100,000 Poles
• Pockets of Romanians and Jews

In March 1939, Hitler invaded and secured the whole of Czechoslovakia after having been granted access to the Sudetenland in 1938. Until 1945, Czechoslovakia remained as a German protectorate but with Slovakia allowed by Hitler to break away and become independent. After the end of the war, free elections were held in Czechoslovakia (1946) and a coalition government consisting mainly of left-wing parties including communists was elected. In fact, the communists gained over a third of the votes, seats in parliament and cabinet positions. A communist, Klement Gottwald, was elected as prime minister but other key positions were allocated to non-communists. The coalition appeared unified enough to enable Czechoslovakia to remain independent of outside influences. The new government pushed ahead with economic policies designed to develop trade with the west and to gain a share of Marshall Aid.

Just before new elections, scheduled for May 1948, the communists in Czechoslovakia dramatically seized power through a military coup. The reasons for that coup appear to be:

1. They were losing the support of the people, who blamed them for the eventual rejection of Marshall Aid.
2. They had lost the co-operation of many non-communist cabinet members.
3. They had established control over the police, military and trade unions. Taking power by force therefore would have been very easy.
4. They were prompted by Stalin in the take-over. Russia was concerned at the attempt to accept American aid (or “dollar imperialism” as they called it) and more generally stronger ties that had started to develop between Czechoslovakia and the west.
   

The coup resulted in the resignation of all non-communist members of the coalition except the president and foreign minister. A new cabinet was formed which agreed to bow down to orders sent from Stalin and preparations were made for new elections. Unsurprisingly the elections were rigged. Under Russian guidelines, voters were given a list of candidates to vote for, all of whom were communists. In turn, the candidates were obliged to carry out policies approved by the Russian government.

The communist takeover in Czechoslovakia caused concern in the West. It had been the last of the Eastern European democracies. Churchill’s Iron Curtain was fully drawn across Europe. The takeover subsequently caused a backlash from the west. In March 1948, Belgium, Britain, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed the Brussels Pact in direct response to the coup. The pact stated the agreement to defend any member attacked by an external aggressor. It also paved the way for a “special” agreement to be made with the USA; the result of this was the formation of NATO. Thus Stalin’s intent to spread Soviet influence in the east seemingly heightened political tensions that emerged in the early years of the Cold War.

The result of the uprising was three-fold:

1. Khrushchev had sent a clear message to Eastern European leaders that he was unwilling, despite de-Stalinisation, to lessen Soviet involvement in their countries.
2. The west, especially the USA, realised that Khrushchev was willing to risk a more global conflict occurring by maintaining his authority over Hungary. Therefore, there was a reluctance from the west to intervene.
3. Communist China under the leadership of Mao supported Khrushchev’s actions. This temporarily eased some of the tension that had emerged over ideology between the Soviet and Chinese governments.

Poland

Poland, a nation which had long been a part of the wider Russian Empire achieved its independence in the aftermath of the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and had protected that independence from Lenin’s Bolshevik forces during the Civil War. The Soviet view under Stalin however, was that Poland should be incorporated into the USSR and helps explain why Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact with Germany in August 1939. This led to the invasion of Poland on its eastern borders by Soviet troops.

By the early stages of the war, the Polish government had decided to flee to London and, with the support of a Polish underground movement, to go into exile. One of the aims of the London Poles was to ensure that when the war came to an end Poland would not endure any territorial loss. Relations with Russia continued to be tense, even after Russia joined the war on the side of the allies after they were invaded by Germany. In the summer of 1944, the Russians launched their counteroffensive against the Germans. After pushing German forces out of the homeland, Russian troops were ordered to proceed into Poland. The question of governance of Poland was raised at the Yalta conference. By this time, Warsaw had been liberated and was temporarily governed by the Red Army. Stalin demanded that a new RussoPolish frontier should be established and that the whole of Poland had to be governed by a Soviet backed council. Roosevelt and Churchill gave in and the London Poles were abandoned. The Polish western border was dealt with at the Potsdam conference. Again Stalin won consent from Truman and Churchill to accept a western demarcation line which was well inside ethnic Germany. This paved the way for Russia to fully implement a Soviet-style government across the newly-constituted Poland.

In 1947, a provisional constitution and Council of State was established. The Council had almost total legislative and executive power and was dominated by the Stalinist-influenced Polish Workers’ Party. By 1948, a one-party state had been established. Those who questioned the move away from any semblance of social democracy, such as members of the Church and trade unions, were arrested. In 1950, for example, over 30,000 workers went on strike at various times, only to find that they were quickly rounded up and sent to the newly built concentration camps at Mielcin and Jaworzno. The clampdown was reinforced by the imposition of Soviet-type economic and social reforms. Most notable was the spread of collective farms. In 1952, Poland was officially renamed the People’s Republic of Poland. Historian Adam Zamoyski pointed out “Poland had been hermetically sealed off from the outside world, and not just by the three hundred kilometres of barbed-wire entanglements and 1200 watchtowers surrounding it”.

Under Khrushchev’s leadership controls over Poland eased. In October 1956, Wladyslaw Gomulka was released from prison to take over the leadership of Poland. This led to reforms such as allowing independent peasants to hold small landholdings and the Catholic Church was allowed to teach religion in school.