This change of plans gave Stalin important advantages. He deflected charges that he was not sufficiently attentive to revolutionary developments in Germany. Also, the question of reorganizing the secretariat and the collective leadership was pushed off the agenda by the more urgent German problem. Stalin had managed to disrupt Zinoviev’s and Bukharin’s offensive and had forced them to follow a new script. After gathering in Moscow on 21 August, the Politburo heatedly and enthusiastically discussed the impending German revolution, the assistance the USSR would provide, and the possible responses by European powers. Everyone agreed that war was imminent. Supporting his colleagues’ optimism, Stalin stated: “If we really want to help the Germans, and we do want that and must help, we have to prepare for war seriously and thoroughly, since in the end it will be a matter of the existence of the Soviet Federation and of the fate of world revolution in the near future.… Either the revolution in Germany will collapse and they will beat us, or revolution will succeed there and everything will go well, and our situation will be assured. There is no other option.”
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Here we see that Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders still shared the opinion that the USSR’s fate was tied to the fate of world revolution, although the extent of this interdependence was not discussed in detail. What exactly did Stalin mean by “they will beat us” or “our situation will be assured”? What would this “beating” entail, and just what kind of assurance did he expect? These appear to be empty phrases, a nod to Marxist orthodoxy. When it came to tactical questions, he still sounded cautious and skeptical. He refused to support Trotsky and Zinoviev’s proposal to set an exact date for the German revolution, believing it was better to make preparations and await the right moment. He also warned against hasty “leftism”: “Concerning the [German Communist] leftists. They are the most dangerous people for us. A premature takeover of factories, etc., would hold great dangers for us.”
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On the question of setting an exact timetable for revolution, he wound up in the same camp as Bukharin and Aleksei Rykov.
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The latter was the most consistent adherent of caution: “It is completely clear that everything is being bet on this one card. We are absolutely not ready.… We have to back off.”
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With war supposedly looming, the reorganization of the secretariat must have seemed inconsequential. We do not know how and when this issue, which just two weeks earlier had seemed vitally important, was finally resolved—probably some agreement was reached in the corridors during breaks between meetings devoted to Germany. As a result, in September 1923 a rather pointless decision was made: Zinoviev and Trotsky were made members of the Central Committee’s Organizational Bureau rather than the secretariat. This move would do nothing to solve the original problem—Stalin’s excessive control over decision making, to which Zinoviev and Bukharin had so hotly objected in July and August.
An event of great political significance took place at a plenary session of the Central Committee in September. The plenum adopted a decision to place Stalin and Voroshilov on the governing bodies of the military—Trotsky’s domain. Trotsky was being surrounded by his political opponents on his own turf. He stormed out of the plenum in indignation.
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Historians still lack information on how this highly provocative attack against Trotsky was staged. It must have emerged from behind-the-scenes collusion between (at least) Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. They may have rationalized their actions with the following logic: events in Europe were coming to a head. The role of the Red Army and the military would be crucial, as it had been during the Civil War, and the influence of the Red Army’s recognized leader would grow. The military therefore had to be brought under the control of Politburo members other than Trotsky before he became too powerful. It is unclear who initiated the ejection of Trotsky from the army’s leadership. What is clear is that Stalin benefited significantly from this sharp escalation in the power struggle among the party’s top leadership.
Aggrieved and isolated, in October 1923 Trotsky launched a counterattack. He submitted a letter to the membership of the party’s Central Committee and Central Control Commission charging that the majority of Politburo members were conducting a misguided and unsound policy. He became a magnet for dissatisfied members. A fierce struggle broke out in which Zinoviev and other Politburo members, even those who felt that Stalin was already too powerful, were forced to join forces with him. In the coming two years this polarization—the Trotsky camp versus the Stalin camp—would serve Stalin well.
Discussion of Lenin’s last dictated texts, about the need to remove Stalin from the post of general secretary, was shaped by this battle. Lenin died in January 1924. In May came the next party congress. During the congress, party leaders decided to disclose Lenin’s “testament.” By general consensus this was done in such a way as to minimize the sting to Stalin. Lenin’s final dictated words were not read at a general session of the congress but at the meetings of separate delegations.
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This procedure made it inevitable: Stalin was reelected as general secretary. Trotsky did not speak out, but it was not his silence that helped Stalin. Trotsky’s very presence was enough.
Despite his masterful handling of this situation, Stalin found himself in a vulnerable position. His virtues and shortcomings were a matter of public discussion. The very fact that such conversations could take place and that verdicts were being reached, however favorable, threatened to diminish his political authority. Rather than feeling gratitude toward those colleagues who had defended him before the congress’s delegates, he seemed to respond with festering resentment. Their sympathy was demeaning; it looked too much like condescension, and their support felt like a favor that would have to be returned in kind. Stalin had no intention of paying off any political debts or allowing himself to be turned into a junior partner. Several weeks after the end of the congress he started biting the hands that fed him. In June 1924,
Pravda
published a speech by Stalin in which he found fault with some rather innocuous statements by Kamenev and Zinoviev.
This outrageous breach of the anti-Trotsky leadership’s united front caused consternation among top party ranks. Historians have uncovered no documents to shed light on what prompted Stalin’s public scolding of Kamenev and Zinoviev, but it appears that this incident was discussed among a close circle of party leaders during the Central Committee plenum of August 1924, and Stalin found himself outnumbered. It is hard to find another explanation for Stalin’s 19 August 1924 letter of resignation, a copy of which is preserved in his archive. In this remarkable document, Stalin stated that his collaboration with Kamenev and Zinoviev in the Politburo after Lenin’s retirement had yielded deplorable results, demonstrating the “impossibility of an honest and sincere political collaboration with these comrades within the framework of a single, close collegium.” In light of this, he submitted his resignation from the Politburo and, accordingly, from the post of general secretary. He requested a two-month medical leave, after which he asked to be “assigned to some minor post either in Turukhansky Krai, Yakutsk Oblast, or abroad.”
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This manipulative passive-aggressive outburst could hardly have been taken seriously. Nobody would have believed that Stalin actually intended to endure another Siberian exile, this time as a low-level paper-pusher! The full membership of the Central Committee, to whom the letter of resignation was addressed, never saw it. The matter was dealt with by a close-knit group of “friends” and allies, probably on 19 August, the day the letter appeared, or the following day. One can only assume that the establishment of an informal majority within the Central Committee took place in conjunction with the discussion of Stalin’s letter. Later testimony by Zinoviev suggests that this all occurred between sessions of the Central Committee plenum, which concluded on 20 August. The majority faction, made up of the most influential anti-Trotsky members of the Central Committee, elected a
semerka,
a group of seven, to serve as its governing body. The Seven included the chairman of the Central Control Commission and all the members of the Politburo except for Trotsky and functioned as a sort of shadow Politburo.
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Historians most often describe the establishment of this Central Committee majority faction and the Seven as an anti-Trotsky effort. This is partially true, but as Stalin’s letter of resignation shows, the new unofficial body’s primary task was to work behind the scenes to consolidate a majority within the Politburo and overcome internal disagreements. The Seven replaced the troika, which had not succeeded in this role.
This pivotal episode in the party’s internal struggles reflects the balance of power in the Politburo during the summer of 1924. Stalin was apparently intentionally inciting conflict with Kamenev and Zinoviev, even though he could not yet be certain that other Politburo members, who were concerned with unity, would take his side. The letter of resignation was not only an obvious test of his own strength, but also a sign that he was still relatively weak. This incident was an important step toward Stalin’s break with Kamenev and Zinoviev and his gradual alliance with Bukharin and Rykov. Having freed himself from the confines of the troika and now having the Seven to work with, he gained maneuverability.
Whatever personal intentions and calculations were at play in forming the anti-Trotsky coalition in 1924–1925, it gave rise to a curious system of collective leadership that has been little studied as a force shaping the system of government that developed after Lenin’s death. This collective leadership involved the interaction of politically equal Soviet leaders and the relatively autonomous government agencies they headed. It featured a rather well-developed division of functions between party and governmental apparats. Government policy, shaped by compromises among the competing interests represented by these leaders and agencies, became flexible and well balanced.
The period of collective leadership was a time of productive decision making and the flourishing of the NEP. The Seven overcame the crises the NEP was designed to address and adjusted the country’s economic course while avoiding measures that would have caused systemic damage. Oligarchic government lent itself to relatively moderate political and economic policies. But collective leadership began to disintegrate when the government turned to a more hard-line, radical course. As historians have long believed and as recent archival research has confirmed, the seeds of conflict that put an end to collective leadership were intentionally sown by Stalin.
THE CRUSHING OF TROTSKY AND ZINOVIEV
Ultimately, the viability of the collective leadership depended on its top leaders’ willingness to adhere to the rules of their unique system of government. This system, which faced no threats beyond the personal ambitions of individual Politburo members, had marked advantages over an individual dictatorship. Whether it would survive after Lenin’s demise had everything to do with the personal qualities of the three Bolshevik oligarchs: Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Stalin (in theory, these names could be given in any order—their standing was supposed to be equal). These personal qualities, however, undermined collective leadership, and intrigues among these three figures inevitably drew other highly placed Bolsheviks into the fray, destabilizing the entire collective decision-making process.
Lacking a system for resolving personal conflicts, the collective leadership resorted to rather boorish methods to isolate Trotsky and exclude him from power. In so doing, it launched a process that destroyed the last shreds of relative democracy within the Bolshevik party. In January 1925, Trotsky was removed from his post as people’s commissar for military and naval affairs, ending his hold on any real power. Zinoviev proposed that he also be removed from the Politburo. This proposal made perfect sense since Trotsky had already been excluded from the Politburo’s work (as well as the unofficial deliberations of the Seven). But most members of the Politburo and Central Committee did not relish such changes, which always carried unpredictable consequences, and stood firmly under the banner of “unity.” Zinoviev’s proposal seemed a bit bloodthirsty. The jokester Bukharin even made up an aphorism inspired by Zinoviev’s anti-Trotsky zeal: “If you see that the name Othello has been replaced with ‘Grigory’ [Zinoviev’s first name], believe your eyes.”
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Stalin was well aware of these moods, and along with the rest of the Seven, he opposed Zinoviev’s proposal, cunningly presenting himself as a supporter of unity and collective leadership. “We plan to take all measures that preserve the unity of the Seven come what may,” he wrote to Ordzhonikidze in February 1925.
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In actuality, the situation was coming to a head. New jabs were being exchanged between the Seven majority, on the one hand, and Zinoviev and Kamenev on the other, and Stalin’s skilled hand could be seen in these intrigues. By late 1925 Zinoviev and Kamenev had formed a faction that threw down a gauntlet before Stalin, Bukharin, Rykov, and their followers.
At first the struggle for control centered on procedural matters—how and by whom the Politburo’s agenda should be set, as well as how the matter of Trotsky should be handled. These seemingly innocuous questions actually expressed a heated struggle for dominance within the collective leadership, but in order for this struggle to be taken beyond the bounds of the Seven, it needed a program. One could not gain the support of party functionaries, as Zinoviev and Kamenev counted on doing, with talk of winning control of the Politburo. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their supporters chose a more respectable theme: the struggle against the “rightist” threat of allowing the NEP—which supposedly would strengthen “capitalist elements” and prosperous peasants (kulaks)—to become entrenched. Coming from the “moderate” Kamenev and Zinoviev, who were opposing the “leftist” Trotsky, or from Lenin’s widow Krupskaia (who, out of long-standing friendship, supported Zinoviev and Kamenev over Stalin), this program looked out of place, even absurd. But they had no other choice. The Politburo majority was following a “rightist” course, so in order to oppose it, they were forced to move leftward. Probably Zinoviev and Kamenev also counted on recruiting to their cause the rather sizable subset of party functionaries who were inclined against the NEP.