In merely a matter of months, the pauperism and starvation of the old Communist economy began to disappear. The law of supply and demand began to have its effect so that private initiative commenced to provide what the people needed. In the cities an air of relative prosperity rapidly returned to the bleak streets and empty shops.
The Rise of Stalin to Power
Lenin barely lived long enough to see the New Economic Program go into effect. He had his first stroke in 1922, and died January 20, 1924. As Lenin saw the end drawing near, he became alarmed over the possibility of Joseph Stalin becoming his successor. For many years Lenin had been using Stalin to perform tasks requiring the most ruthless methods, but now he became fearful of what might happen if Stalin used these same methods to take over the Communist Party.
On December 25, 1923, while lying speechless and half-paralyzed on his deathbed, Lenin wrote the following dramatic appeal to the members of the Politiburo (the supreme governing council of the Communist Party, and hence, of all Russia):
“Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely supportable in relations among us Communists, becomes insupportable in the office of the General Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint to it another man who in all respects differs from Stalin… namely, more patients, more loyal, more polite, and more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle, but I think that from the point of view of preventing a split, and from the point of view of the relation between Stalin and Trotsky… it is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle as may acquire decisive significance.”
Time proved that Lenin knew whereof he spoke. Stalin’s whole attitude toward life may be caught in a statement which he later made as he was rising to power: “To choose one’s victim, to prepare one’s plans minutely, to stake an implacable vengeance, and then go to bed… there is nothing sweeter in the world.”
By 1927 Stalin had achieved precisely what Lenin feared he might—the outright control of the Russian Empire. He had not only unseated Trotsky, but had driven from the arena every formidable source of opposition. He had attained such complete victory in the battle for the control of world Communism that he now felt strong enough to try and satisfy one of his greatest ambitions. He determined to make a second attempt to communize Russia.
The First Five-Year Plan
The first Five-Year Plan began in 1928. It was aimed at wiping out the prosperous independence of businessmen and the peasant farmers who had been thriving during the New Economic Program. Once again there was widespread confiscation of property, and once again the secret police began executing masses of Russians who resisted. Stalin was determined that the Russian economy should be immediately forced into the confines of theoretical socialism and demonstrate to the world that it could out-produce and out-distribute the capitalistic industrial nations, such as the United States and Great Britain. Within weeks, however, the Five-Year-Plan had wiped out the warm glow of prosperity and comparative abundance which Russia had known under the NEP. Rationing was necessary and the hated revolutionary “starvation bread” made of birch bark had to be reintroduced.
The basic theme of the Five-Year-Plan was collectivized industry and collectivized agriculture. Stalin knew he would get resistance from the prosperous peasants (called Kulaks) and he therefore ordered a complete genocidal liquidation of the Kulaks as a class. Some of the Kulaks destroyed all their property, burned their homes, slaughtered their cattle and fled toward the Caucasus mountains, but most of them were caught or died on the way. Official reports tell how rebellious villages were leveled to the ground by artillery fire and in one area of the Don region, 50,000 men, women and children were destroyed, leaving a vestige of only 2,000 people who were shipped off to central Asia, while the land which they had cultivated for generations was taken over for collectivized farming.
Stalin also included in the Five-Year-Plan an acceleration of the Communist fight against religion. By 1930 the Union of Militant Atheists had an active membership of two-and-one-half million. Churches and cathedrals were turned into secular buildings. The Christmas festival was prohibited and the buying and selling of Christmas trees was a criminal offense. Sunday was eliminated as a day of worship, and workers were required to rotate their days off so that industry would continue day and night, seven days a week.
Stalin also attempted to follow Engel’s suggestion to break up the family. All the theories of Marx and Engels were coming to life under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin.
By 1930 Stalin was beginning to realize that he may have pressed the long-suffering endurance of the people too far. He therefore came forth with an expression of deep anguish for the suffering masses. He blamed all the troubles on the government officers who, in their zeal, were overshooting the mark and imposing unreasonable demands upon the people, particularly the peasants. He wrote as though he had just heard of the terrible misery which had overtaken the people. But, having cleared himself for the record, Stalin then went firmly ahead with terror tactics which made conditions more frightful than ever.
The Communist Crisis of 1932-33
By 1932 the situation had reached a crisis. The Russian people had suffered starvation, mass executions, ruthless liquidation of the Kulak class, suppression of all private enterprise, deportations to Siberia and long sentences to forced labor camps. The crimes against humanity were on a scale comparable to the Nazi atrocities subsequently committed at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Belsen.
In a recent biography of Stalin, Nikolaus Basseches states that during 1932 the leaders of the Communist Party knew they would have to dethrone Stalin or face revolution. Even the army was about to revolt. The Politburo held a secret meeting in December and Stalin made a number of proposals to further suppress the people, but this time even these men who owed their political existence to Stalin voted him down flatly. It is reported that Stalin was so amazed by this display of opposition that he admitted to Molotov that perhaps he should accept defeat and resign. Molotov, however, is said to have encouraged him to hold on a little longer to see if conditions might not improve.
U.S. Recognition of Communist Russia Comes at a Critical Time
Molotov was right. Future circumstances did offer Stalin a solution to his crisis. The first thing that happened was Hitler’s rise to power in January, 1933. Hitler’s strong anti-Communist policies led many Russians to believe that there might be a war between Russia and Germany, and they therefore began to forget their resentment against Stalin because of their worry over Hitler. The second factor which helped Stalin was the recognition of his Communist regime by the great leader of world capitalism—the United States. This last factor was a singular development.