The second measure of Stalin's supremacy was the ease with which he manipulated decision-making structures to suit his own needs. The years 1937-8 had witnessed the end of the 'old' Politburo as a collective decisionmaking body. On 14 April 1937 two Politburo commissions were established for the consideration of high-level secret issues. These were then superseded by a smaller 'ruling group' of the Politburo, the so-called 'quintet' which, apart from Stalin, consisted of Molotov, Mikoyan, Voroshilov and Kaganovich. While this group convened regularly in Stalin's office, the formal Politburo, as a collective body with well-defined procedures, ceased to function. On 17 January 1941 Stalin explained the principles behind the new arrangement: 'We at the Central Committee have not convened a meeting of the Politburo for four to five months now. All questions are prepared directly by Zhdanov, Malenkov, and others at meetings with specialist colleagues and, far from losing out, the leadership system as a whole has actually improved.'[70]
A further indicator of Stalin's new status was his own appointment as chair of Sovnarkom in May 1941, a move which finally confirmed Stalin as absolute leader of the country (and not simply of the party) and as successor to Lenin (who had himself served as head of Sovnarkom). The appointment appears to have been carefully orchestrated by Stalin. Following a succession of attacks on the then head of Sovnarkom, Molotov, on 28 April 1941 Stalin sent members of the higher leadership a note: 'I thinkit is no longer possible to carry on "running things" like this. I suggest we raise the matter at the Politburo.'[71] On 4 May 1941 a Politburo resolution drew up a new pecking order. In addition to having been sacked as chair of Sovnarkom, Molotov, now a regular deputy chair, had been overtaken by Voznesenskii, who had been made first deputy chair in March. At the same time, in a break with existing party conventions, Zhdanov was officially designated as Stalin's 'deputy' in the party, with responsibility for directing the work of the party apparatus.[72]
With these reorganisations a new dictatorial order was consolidated. Stalin now held the two supreme offices of the party-state and had appointed as his first deputies not old colleagues, but new figures, Zhdanov and Voznesenskii. The dictator was in turn supported by an informally constituted 'ruling group' (now expanded from the original 'quintet' to include recently promoted figures such as Voznesenskii, Zhdanov, Malenkov and Beria) which met at his discretion and drew up decisions, depending on Stalin's wishes, either in the name of the Politburo or of Sovnarkom.
At the first session of the new bureau of Sovnarkom on 9 May 1941, Stalin once again reminded his companions of their dependence on his good will. Molotov, who had presented a paper on bonuses for engineers and who, as we have seen, had been Stalin's most faithful follower, bore the brunt of Stalin's attack. Iakov Chadaev, who took the minutes of the meeting, recalls:
Stalin did not conceal his disapproval of Molotov. He very impatiently listened to Molotov's rather prolix responses to comments from members of the bureau ... It seemed as if Stalin was attacking Molotov as an adversary and that he was doing so from a position of strength . . . Molotov's breathing began to quicken, and at times he would let out a deep sigh. He fidgeted on his stool and murmured something to himself. By the end he could take it no longer:
'Easier said than done,' Molotov pronounced in a low but cutting voice. Stalin picked up [Molotov's] words.
'It has long been well known,' said Stalin, 'that the person who is afraid of criticism is a coward.'
Molotov winced, but kept quiet - the other members of the Politburo sat silently, burying their noses in the papers . . . At this meeting I was again convinced of the power and greatness of Stalin. Stalin's companions feared him like the devil. They would agree with him on practically anything.[73]
On the eve of war Stalin had become a fully fledged dictator. Without concerning himself with notions of 'collegiality', he settled some of the most important issues of the day single-handedly. Accordingly there is not even a perfunctory reference in the Politburo records to the most historic decisions of the day, such as the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939. At the same time, it would be wrong to think that, even at this stage, all the elements of 'oligarchic' leadership had vanished. Even at the height of dictatorship there continued to exist, albeit in a weakened and attenuated form, in-built forces pushing towards oligarchic or collegial rule. These found expression in the relative autonomy of Politburo leaders in dealing with everyday operational issues and in the emergence of powerful networks of patron-client relations tying Politburo leaders to circles of dependants beneath them. This tension between personal dictatorship and oligarchical rule would carry on into the war period and beyond.
War years
The months leading to the war revealed the downside of Stalin's obstinate nature and of the highly concentrated system of decision-making he had created. In addition to blocking much-needed reorganisations of the General Staff, Stalin dismissed a series of detailed intelligence reports on the German build-up for war as 'provocations'.[74] Stalin's state of denial reached a head on the first day of the German attack. 'I only saw Stalin confused once,' Zhukov later recalled, 'and that was at daybreak on 22 June 1941.'[75] For most of the first morning, Stalin still clung to the hope that this was an act of provocation instigated by the German generals without Hitler's knowledge or consent. Such hope evaporated, however, with the official declaration of war by the German ambassador, Schulenburg, later on in the morning. 'During that first day [Stalin] was unable to pull himself together and take hold of events,' recounted Zhukov.[76]
In the first months of the war Stalin committed a succession of blunders. By mid-October, as the Germans approached Moscow, the leader's confidence had reached a low ebb. In a break with precedent, Stalin let the commander of the Moscow front, Georgii Zhukov, have a free hand in organising the city's defence. Observers recall Zhukov treating Stalin brusquely and even rejecting his advice:
[Stalin's] eyes hadlost their old steadiness; his voice lacked assurance. But I was evenmore surprised by Zhukov's behaviour. He spoke in a sharp commanding tone. It looked as if Zhukov was really the superior officer here. And Stalin accepted this as proper. At times a kind of bafflement even crossed his face.[77]
The summer and autumn of 1941 saw Stalin weaker than possibly at any time since coming to power. Yet the vulnerability of the Soviet system in these months meant that the ruling circle now needed Stalin more than ever. On 30 June four leaders, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria and Voroshilov, gathered in Molotov's office and decided to create a State Defence Committee (GKO) to take overall command of the war effort. When the four visited Stalin at his dacha, to which he had retreated in despair two days earlier, following the fall of Minsk, it was to beseech him to head the new committee. Despite the leader's temporary fall from grace, this approach by Stalin's deputies was not at all surprising. After over a decade of ceaseless propaganda, the cult of Stalin had assumed significant proportions as a popular motivator. The aura around Stalin also served to integrate the country's decision-making bodies and to coordinate the higher ranks of leaders and decision makers. Among top officials,
72
O.V Khlevniuk et al. (eds.),
74
Iurii Gor'kov,
75
Georgii Zhukov,
77
Colonel General P. A. Belov, cited in Seweryn Bialer (ed.),