Yet in the very first years of peaceful life the «world backstage» and its RSFSR-USSR local representatives discovered the fact that most workers and peasants were loyal to the Soviet regime and many of them, especially young people, actively supported it on their own accord.[222] At the same time there was a growth in a certain phenomenon which internazis call anti-Semitism occurring throughout the entire society.[223] Under the social conditions existing at the time individuals like L. Bronstein (Trotsky), L. Rosenfeld (Kamenev), G. Apfelbaum (Zinovyev) and others of their kinship — at the time the cult leaders of the revolution and the «working people» who have won the Civil War — could not personify state power during the long period of building a new social order which then lay yet ahead.[224]
One should also understand that there is one kind of attitude to a revolution and the new power which follows in its wake if the revolution takes place while an imperialist war is going on and while everyone is tired of that war (except the “elite” who make fortunes on it). But there is a completely different attitude to a revolution if the new power arises as a result of a victory won by an aggressor who has started a «revolutionary fight for the sake of liberating fellow workers of another country from the yoke of capital» while those workers themselves have not yet become inspired with the thought of a revolution and a new power.[225] It is equally so if the new power arises through a coup d’etat organized in a country living a peaceful life.[226] Psychic Trotskyites and Marxists in the USSR did not regard those circumstances of great political momentum[227] as a political reality.[228]
Besides, while Russia fought the Civil War the revolutionary situation in European countries came to naught.
Due to these circumstances the «world backstage» had to agree with V. Lenin’s point of view: first establish socialism in a separate individual country, then transition to socialism in all other countries. V. Lenin expressed this point of view in as early as 1915. Among the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) top officials this point of view was shared by J. Stalin.
As noted by some biographers of J. Stalin, in the pre-Revolutionary and the early post-revolutionary years he was among the last to join the (party) majority that had already been formed before. This defined the way he made his party career. His works were written in a language befitting common people (see his Collected works). On the one hand, it made them easily accessible for the understanding of the common working people who were semiliterate and poorly educated. On the other hand, it convinced the intelligentsia who took up the ruling role in the party of J. Stalin’s own illiteracy because he seemed not to be able of mastering that «highly scientific» argot which was used by the party intelligentsia in their oral and written word and which the common people could not understand (e.g., immanent, permanent, fideism, gnoseology and similar words used in the literature of Marxist intelligentsia). Therefore for party leaders of Trotsky’s type Stalin was neither an outstanding party philosopher, economist and publicist writer[229] nor an outstanding orator capable of enticing the crowd towards the feats of revolution by word of mouth. The intelligentsia leaders and their supporters believed him to be an ill-bred (having no good manners), rude, poorly educated (a half-educated seminarian[230]), lazy (has written nothing during his last exile) man and therefore a man incapable of thinking independently.
This created a false impression that J.V. Stalin could be controlled by cleverer and better-educated leaders even if he did become the top party executive. That is why Stalin’s promotions to higher and higher levels of power inside the party produced no objection or opposition of the «world backstage».
Besides, J.V. Stalin was a member of a national minority like the majority of revolution leaders, namely, a Georgian, which seemed to guarantee that he would suppress any threat of «Great Russian» nationalism or Nazism.
All those factors resulted in that the «world backstage» found it plausible to entrust the task of personifying the success of socialism in a separate individual country to J. Stalin.
Bolsheviks, on their part, were also pondering who was to succeed and continue their cause as V. Lenin’s illness resulting from his injury[231] was deteriorating and making him less and less capable of leading the party and the state.
In this connection we shall turn to a document known as «The address to the convention» which is reported by the CPSU’s historic tradition as having been written down from V. Lenin’s words by several of his secretaries and at different times between December 1922 and January 1923.
The letter concerns the ways to avoid a party split in future and to ensure the Central Committee’s stability through formal means but not through achieving a unity of opinions on all the issues of party activity, this unity being based on the common methodology of cognition and world understanding shared by the party members.[232]
«I think that the most important people as far as this kind of stability is concerned are such CC[233] members as Stalin and Trotsky. The terms they are on in my opinion comprise the greater half of the danger posed by that kind of split which could be avoided. In my judgment it can be avoided through increasing the number of CC members up to 50 or 100 people among other things.[234]
Having taken the post of general secretary Comrade Stalin has concentrated in his hands a power of limitless authority, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use that power with enough caution or not. On the other hand, comrade Trotsky is distinguished not only by his outstanding abilities[235], as his opposition to the CC in regard to the issue of NKPS[236] has demonstrated.[237] Personally he seems to be the most able man in the current CC, yet he carries it too far with his self-confidence and caring too much for the purely administrative side of our cause.
The above-mentioned two qualities of the two outstanding leaders in our current CC can accidentally lead to a split, and if our party does not take measures to counter it, the split can occur unexpectedly.
I shall not speak any more about the personal qualities of other CC members. I should only like to remind you that the incident with Zinovyev and Kamenev was of course caused not by chance, yet they personally can be hardly blamed for it, just like Trotsky can be hardly blamed for his non-bolshevism» (V. Lenin, Collected works, issue 5, volume 45, the notes of December 24, 1922 continued, dictated by V. Lenin on December 25, 1922).
J. Stalin’s qualities are described further in the addition to the notes of December 25, 1922. This is what was written down by another secretary of V. Lenin, L. Fotiyeva (1881 — 1975) on January 4, 1923:
«Stalin is too rude, and this drawback which is tolerable among ourselves, the communists, becomes intolerable for a man in the office of the general secretary. That is why I suggest the comrades to think of a way to remove Stalin from this post and appoint a different man to it. In all the other respects this man should differ from comrade Stalin in only one way — having the advantage of being more tolerable, loyal, polite and attentive towards comrades, less whimsical, etc. This circumstance might seem to be trivial. But I think that in respect to avoiding a split and to what I said above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky this is not trivial or this is a trifle which could prove to be decisive».
Psychic Trotskyite writers have commented upon the “Address to the convention” by V. Lenin over and over again, making special emphasis on the addition to the address of January 4, 1923. They implied that it contained a Lenin’s warning that nobody listened to. Yet almost the only thing that escaped their understanding is exactly what V. Lenin really warned Bolsheviks from, as well as the fact that in this letter V. Lenin actually recommends J.V. Stalin to the party of Bolsheviks as his successor.