Constructing his own image was the name of Stalin’s game. Standing on a pedestal above the fray was a better guarantee of his security and power than a host of bodyguards. And in these times of peasant starvation and persecution, what better to serve his image than a public declaration by a defender of the peasantry like Sholokhov, to the effect that Stalin had personally ordered the dispatch of tons of grain to save lives? That was the heart of the matter and this was precisely what Sholokov supplied to the press, without even having to lie.
LIFE AT THE TOP (THE 1940s)
Another image Stalin liked to project – the thrifty farmer (khoziain) – was in part a genuine character trait. He was intolerant of personal weaknesses like drinking, extramarital relationships, or a taste for luxury, including among his closest associates. He made sure he was kept informed about such behaviour and ordered Politburo members to be spied on so that he could know about and, where necessary, exploit such weaknesses.
Aleksei Kosygin’s memoirs provide an insight into Stalin’s scheming in the late 1940s. A rising star at the end of the Second World War, Kosygin had to his wartime credit such achievements as the evacuation of industrial plant from territories about to fall to the Nazis and the organization of supplies to besieged Leningrad. Kosygin was unpopular with many at the top, envious as they were of his rapid rise. But he was also feared, because Stalin had taken him under his wing and assigned him the delicate task of making a list of the privileges enjoyed by Politburo members. As Kosygin subsequently reported to his son-in-law Gvishiani, Stalin had told him during a Politburo meeting that he possessed a list detailing everything that the families of Molotov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich and others were spending on themselves, their guards and servants, and was outraged: ‘It’s simply revolting.’ At the time, while Politburo members earned a comparatively modest salary, they enjoyed unlimited access to consumer goods – hence their anger when Stalin instructed Kosygin to put the house in order. Obviously, they dared not blame Stalin himself and some of them, like Mikoyan, understood that this was a way of keeping them on their toes. But perhaps it was also a pretext for getting rid of some of them when needed.
In fact, Stalin was forever plotting such things. Kosygin also told Gvishiani that one of the accusations levelled against Voznesensky, head of Gosplan and Deputy Prime Minister until he was purged in 1950, was that he possessed one or more weapons. Kosygin and Gvishiani immediately searched their own homes and threw all the weapons into a lake. They also looked for listening devices and did find them in Kosygin’s house (though they might have been installed to spy on Marshal Zhukov, who lived there before Kosygin). No wonder, then, that every morning in these years (1948–50), Kosygin – a candidate member of the Politburo – said farewell to his wife and reminded her what to do if he did not return home in the evening. They soon concluded, however, that he would not be harmed – Stalin felt some kind of sympathy towards him.[5]
He was lucky. But all the leaders, unless naive or too sure of themselves, very soon learnt from their own experience or that of their colleagues. After the assassination of Kirov in 1934, a sea-change occurred in their status vis-à-vis Stalin and they were immediately aware of it. It can be observed in the correspondence between Stalin and Kaganovich, then his number two. Hitherto self-assured and very direct, Kaganovich completely changed his tone, declaring himself immensely ‘grateful’ to fate for having vouchsafed him such a friend, leader and father: ‘What would we have done without him?’, and so on. It is obvious that at some stage Kaganovich had a ‘revelation’. In particular, he realized that Stalin was informed of anything he might write to others. That such senior leaders should find themselves in such a situation is something unique in the annals of history. Nothing comparable occurred in Hitler’s entourage after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 (the SA were potentially political rivals). What we observe here is a highly elaborate despotic regime, launched in top gear, with an unchecked master of the art at its head.
In constructing his image, Stalin resorted to various methods. He personally selected the words to be employed in singing his praises in films, speeches and biographies. He ensured that his favourite superlatives were used, but censored others in order to demonstrate his modesty. He chose his decorations and titles. The rituals of congresses and other public occasions were perfected in minute detail. Finally, history was rewritten so that everything revolved around his person.
Stalin conceived himself as an autocrat and was determined not to share his place and image with anyone else, past or present. In his eyes, the other leaders were not in the same league. They did not really count: it was simply necessary to ensure their servility. From 1934 onwards, he turned them into something resembling temporarily reprieved inmates on death row. His spies supplied him with what he would need against them when the time came. In order to test and ensure their unfailing loyalty, he persecuted members of their families: Kaganovich’s three brothers were killed and Molotov’s wife arrested.
On various occasions, Stalin explained to gatherings at his dacha that what ‘the people’ wanted was a Tsar, a generalissimo. Everything in fact suggests that this is what he himself wanted and needed. Moreover, the spectacle of his oath to Lenin in 1924 had created a precedent for his own cult. Everything becomes clearer when we examine Stalin’s relationship to his own revolutionary past. It is easy to demonstrate that he erased it and worked hard to create not only a different system, but also an entirely new pantheon and past. Stalin faced what might be called a historical alibi problem and needed to acquire legitimacy. Unlike Hitler, for example, he expounded his true strategy and programme only in snippets, as in his pronouncement on cadres in 1925. But we also know the grudges he harboured towards other leaders of the Bolshevik party, who had not given him the recognition he considered his due. In fact, the historical leadership, personified by Lenin, had rejected him. In the party’s eyes, he did not belong to the category of founding fathers and did not deserve to belong to it. This had to be obliterated to justify the new self-image he was hard at work imposing on the country. And this he accomplished with considerable success.
9
THE PURGES AND THEIR ‘RATIONALE’
The need to furnish himself with a new historical alibi was doubtless among the reasons that impelled Stalin to launch the purges of party cadres he had long been contemplating in 1937. He needed to erase a whole historical period and rid himself of those who had witnessed it and who knew who had done what in those heroic years. But this carefully nurtured, calculated revenge was not always cold-bloodedly conducted. At various stages, it unfolded in a state of extreme tension.
BUKHARIN’S CURSE[1]
The liquidation of a figure like Bukharin – politically weak, but intellectually greatly superior to Stalin, and guilty of having been (despite his young age) a ‘founding father’, ‘the party’s favourite’ – sheds light on Stalin’s approach and his state of mind. It unfolded in accordance with a precise script, beginning with a protracted phase of mental torture, proceeding to public degradation, and terminating in a show trial and execution.
The initial manoeuvring began in 1936. Anguished but defiant, Bukharin’s reaction illuminates one aspect of the drama. At first, he thought he still had friends at the top and wrote a desperate letter to Voroshilov, asking for his help and support. He asserted his innocence, concluding: ‘I embrace you because I am guilty of nothing.’ Voroshilov was not the right man to turn to. He immediately showed the letter to Molotov, who instructed him to return it to Bukharin with a note saying: ‘You would do better to confess your vile deeds against the party.’ If Bukharin did not comply, Voroshilov would consider him ‘a scoundrel’. Voroshilov did as he was told.
5
T. I. Fetisov, sost.,