The endorsement that Lenin gave Stalin during Central Committee elections at the April 1917 party conference clearly reflects their close working relationship: “We have known Com. Koba for very many years.… He handles any responsible job well.”8 This recommendation earned Stalin a spot on the Central Committee, yielding him more votes than anyone except Zinoviev and Lenin himself.9 Stalin saw, very directly, Lenin’s huge influence within the party. After some wavering, he made a firm decision to align himself with strength.
Was Stalin merely advancing his own career, or did he actually understand and accept what Lenin stood for? Identifying the source of Stalin’s initial inclination toward “moderate” Bolshevism is of fundamental importance for anyone seeking to understand the workings of his mind. Clearly, the flexibility he exhibited in March–April 1917 does not fit the image of an uncompromising, power-hungry radical. Was his apparent moderation due to Kamenev’s influence? Or was he swayed by the other socialists in the Petrograd soviet, where many of the Mensheviks were fellow Georgians? Perhaps he had not yet developed the confidence to act as an independent political figure and felt he needed someone to follow. In that case, why did he not immediately fall in line behind Lenin after receiving his letter from Switzerland? Perhaps Stalin was genuinely “moderate” in early 1917 but, like many others, changed under the force of circumstances. Historical sources offer no clear-cut answers to these questions. What we do know is that Stalin was not always a radical Bolshevik. His “moderation” and “rightism” would emerge again after Lenin’s death, when the party leaders were choosing the path toward socialism, down which they would lead their vast and isolated country.
The escalation of Russia’s February Revolution followed a typical pattern. The moderate revolutionaries who found themselves in power after the tsar’s overthrow sought mainly to avoid civil war. But while these moderates vacillated, stumbled, and missed opportunities to consolidate their position, the increasingly impatient masses began looking to those who promised radical and immediate change. In this environment, Bolshevik propaganda found fertile ground. Calls for immediate withdrawal from the war, immediate expropriation of large estates and the turning over of land to the peasants, and immediate worker control of industry had broad appeal. As often happens in times of revolution, few demanded that the Bolsheviks spell out just how their program would be put into practice. The masses were inspired by a new faith. Among the Bolshevik rank and file, fewer and fewer were asking their leader the difficult question: What would come next? Lenin led the party with amazing energy, promising that socialism would somehow solve all problems. The banners of the Leninist party—“Most important—engage the enemy”; “We’ll see what happens”; and “Things couldn’t be any worse”—sum up the folk wisdom that guided millions to put their faith in Bolshevik promises.
Stalin was among the Bolshevik leaders who supported Lenin without demanding detailed explanations. Having cast off doubts about the suitability of socialism for a predominantly agrarian country, Stalin now proclaimed that “It is entirely possible that Russia will prove to be the country that paves the way toward socialism.… We must reject the obsolete notion that only Europe can show us the way. There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand on the ground of the latter.”10 The ground of “creative Marxism” proved so accommodating to Stalin’s political needs that he settled there permanently. In 1917, having cast aside the apprehensions of “rightist” Bolshevism, Stalin set out on Lenin’s radical course toward the seizure of power and the introduction of socialism. He never wavered in this decision. The occasional inconsistencies that scholars have noted between Lenin’s and Stalin’s pronouncements are quite superficial and probably show only that Stalin had trouble keeping up with Lenin’s frequent tactical twists and turns. Lenin himself had trouble keeping up with them.
Having set his sights on seizing power, Lenin faced a changeable and complicated situation that made it hard to choose the right moment to strike. The Bolsheviks’ strategy was to maintain revolutionary momentum while awaiting the right moment to cross the line of legality. Overt action against the Provisional Government and the soviets would undoubtedly trigger a confrontation. The time for action had to be chosen carefully, but holding back also had its risks. The only way to gauge the opposing side’s strength was to probe its weaknesses. Furthermore, the Bolsheviks needed to demonstrate to the radical workers and soldiers on whom they were counting that they were capable of action, not just words. Bolshevik forces had to maintain a constant state of combat readiness through “war games,” one of which would turn into a real battle.
In early July 1917, armed soldiers, sailors, and workers took to the streets, marching under Bolshevik banners calling for the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Blood was spilled. The Bolsheviks did not overtly take charge of the rebels, but few were fooled. It was crystal clear to virtually everyone that they were working behind the scenes to overthrow the government. The only question—and historians continue to debate it—was the extent of their involvement in planning the demonstrations. The Provisional Government was able to crush these disturbances, but its efforts at counterstrikes proved haphazard and ineffective. The authorities launched an investigation into allegations that Lenin was a spy being financed by Germany to foment revolution. Charges that the Bolsheviks had organized the riots provided grounds for certain actions against them. The Bolshevik newspaper offices and headquarters were laid waste and shut down, and a few activists were arrested. The “moderate” Kamenev was among those arrested, while Lenin and Zinoviev remained free and went underground.
Stalin, less well known to the government, was not on the list of targeted revolutionaries. He felt so secure that he even proposed that Lenin hide out where Stalin was living at the time, in the apartment of his old friends, the Alliluevs. Stalin’s friendship with the Alliluevs was long-standing and strong. In 1919 he married their daughter Nadezhda, still a teenager at the time.
Stalin accompanied Lenin and Zinoviev as they traveled from Petrograd to the suburban town of Razliv, where the two fugitives were concealed by the family of a worker, Nikolai Yemelianov, a Bolshevik sympathizer. They lived in a loft above Yemelianov’s shed. Later, disguised as farm workers, they made their way to a more sparsely populated area where they took shelter in a hut. In August, Lenin moved to Finland, and from July to October Stalin did not meet with him. Nevertheless, during Stalin’s dictatorship several assertions appeared claiming that he had met with Lenin not once but twice during this period. The main witness of these supposed meetings was Yemelianov.