They say nature abhors a vacuum. By the late 1920's everything remotely traditional in Russian culture had been all but atomized. Churches had been dynamited, clergy were either dead, imprisoned or so marginalized that they were no longer relevant. A whole way of life had abruptly ended. But what now? The Soviets were not afraid to tell you how to act in public or even what to think in private. Under the draconian Article 58 of the legal code even your private feelings could make you a criminal. But was this justified? Was it moral? Of course it was. It was "science." Lenin had taken the writings of Marx and Engels and turned them into an all encompassing regimen for how society was to function all the way down to the thoughts of the smallest child. It was called "scientific socialism" and to even doubt this doctrine as infallible truth could make one into a dangerous heretic worthy of denunciation, arrest, imprisonment or death. But attempts to impliment socialism during Revolution and Civil War had proven to be noting short of a national self immolation for the Russian people. By 1920 the regime was teetering on the abyss. Cannibalism was widespread. Reluctantly, Lenin decided to allow elements of capitalism to exist in order to save the state from complete implosion.... and it worked. The Soviet Union was saved and everyone lived happily ever after..... Lol... not quite. Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin would impliment a plan to end this deal with the devil of capitalism an impose socialism by force from above. Millions of peasants would die but the worker's paradise would be just around the corner. Was it the right thing to do? Of course it was. It was "science." You believe in "science" don't you?
They say nature abhors a vacuum. By the late 1920's everything remotely traditional in Russian culture had been all but atomized. Churches had been dynamited, clergy were either dead, imprisoned or so marginalized that they were no longer relevant. A whole way of life had abruptly ended. But what now? The Soviets were not afraid to tell you how to act in public or even what to think in private. Under the draconian Article 58 of the legal code even your private feelings could make you a criminal. But was this justified? Was it moral? Of course it was. It was "science." Lenin had taken the writings of Marx and Engels and turned them into an all encompassing regimen for how society was to function all the way down to the thoughts of the smallest child. It was called "scientific socialism" and to even doubt this doctrine as infallible truth could make one into a dangerous heretic worthy of denunciation, arrest, imprisonment or death. But attempts to impliment socialism during Revolution and Civil War had proven to be noting short of a national self immolation for the Russian people. By 1920 the regime was teetering on the abyss. Cannibalism was widespread. Reluctantly, Lenin decided to allow elements of capitalism to exist in order to save the state from complete implosion.... and it worked. The Soviet Union was saved and everyone lived happily ever after..... Lol... not quite. Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin would impliment a plan to end this deal with the devil of capitalism an impose socialism by force from above. Millions of peasants would die but the worker's paradise would be just around the corner. Was it the right thing to do? Of course it was. It was "science." You believe in "science" don't you?
0:00 Stephen
What if you had the opportunity to create the perfect society? What if you had the ability to mandate how people lived? What if everything was just a blank slate? The united states of america is just populated with 300 million people.. Young and old that are as of today clueless zombies. If you dont tell them what to do they will just stand there like when you are playing one of those video games and you are a character and you leave the room. The character just stands there just staring. 300 million people just like that. Putty in your hands. Like a big Sim City… only way more in depth. You can make them do what you want. You can make them think what you want. Everything. What would you do? Quite a responsibility eh.. That might sound like some fanciful meglomaniacal dream but when you look at the 1920’s. This early period of the Soviet Union thats exactly what is going on. The Bolshevik leadership believes it is bringing a great people from the wilderness and into the promise land. Everything is to be created anew. The world “totaliterianism” today has some pretty negative connotations to it. There’s a lot of baggage and that baggage relates directly to the period we will discuss totay. The Oxford english dictionary defines is as “a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.” That sounds pretty bad but what if the state represents “truth, justice and freedom?” What if the people running the state were highly educated and they believed that they had scientifically deduced that the program they had devised would be better for everyone? And they knew that for a fact… Would it be moral for them not to bring everyone into line?? Maybe the state should do more than making sure youre house dosent get robbed or a neighboring country doesn’t roll in and kill and enslave everybody. This idea we have today that people should be entitled to their own belief systems? That they should be able to say or do whatever they want so long as no one gets hurt? Historically thats extremely rare. Governments usually endorse a belief system and try to impose it on others. Whether its the Romans insisting on a sacrifice to the emperor or the English Puritans mandating church attendance or Revolutionary France mandating service to the state in a time of crisis. Whats the upper limit though? How far is too far? Can you even come up with a definition? Today we are going to see what happens when a regime attempts to take Marxist Lenininsm and not only impose it on a population of some 170 million people but make each and every one of those people accept it as an article of faith. Why?? Because it is the way the truth and the life. Its Stalin and the new religion of socialism this time of savage continent.
Intro Music 4:47
Welcome back to savage continent. Once again if youve listened to this show for awhile and you havent left a rating or review i would ask that you go to the page where all the episodes are listed on your apple podcasts feed and click wright review or just click that 5 star button for me. You cant imagine how many hours goes into making each and every one of these shows and while i do it for its own sake it would be great if more people could get to hear the show and ratings… well thats how these things happen my friend. Also we are on twitter stephen@savagecontinent and if you search savage continent on facebook you will find our page there too so look it up!!
This was kind of a hard episode to write because there are just so many directions you could really go. In our last podcast we talked about the very public and often deadly war the early Soviet state waged against organized religion… in particular the Russian Orthodox church. Marxism.. At least traditional Marxism makes clear that there is no space for it in the better world to come. These guys were atheists to the last man.. But that doesn't mean they were without faith. No no.. one could make the case that they had more faith than they did. Like so many faiths… especially those in the western tradition… tha Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) there is this idea of absolute truth. No man can serve two masters. You have to pick. One cant exactly follow Islam and believe that Christ was the son of God. If you believe Christ was the son of God are you really much of a Jew any longer? Eastern religions don't seem to operate like that. The cosmic laws that govern reincarnation apply to all.. Thus there are many ways to the divine. You just don't see “wars of religion” east of the Indus River Valley. Western religions have this idea of “absolute truth” that well… is intolerant to many. So we left off with the death of Lenin. When you look at the reverence with which the man was held you could easily make comparisons with Christ or Mohommed. Christ in that he suffered and sacrificed for the salvation of mankind… Mohammed in that he worked to build the civilization that was to come. He laid down the law. He forged a theocratic society in which the God of socialism reigned supreme. The Father Tikhons of the world could fight.. And do so valiantly at times but they would be no match for the “will of the people.” When Tikhon died in 1925 there was no one that could replace him. The Soviet Union would officially endorse the so called “Living Church” which was comprised of clergymen that were friendly to the regime. The most prominent of the turncoats was Sergius. Previously he had been a follower of Tikhon but after being arrested he decided it would be best to go over to the side of the Soviets. The thing you have to understand is that they always had to.. If only for publicity purposes make the case that there was “no religious persecution in the soviet union.” Well its kind of hard to do that if all the clergy are dead or in prison camps. “Look!!! See!! We have religious freedom!! Heres the head of the ROC and wouldn't you know it?? He is ok with Soviet Communism!! Sergius would publicly announce that the regime had never persecuted the church and even thanked the government for the “care that had been shown to believers.”
Stephen 11:41
In an infamous 1927 encyclical he would write:
“We can be faithful citizens of the Soviet Union, loyal to the Soviet government. We want to be Orthodox and at the same time recognize the Soviet Union as our civil motherland, whose joys and successes are our joys and successes and whose failures are our failures. Any blow directed at the Union, be it a war, a boycott, some kind of social disaster, or just a murder from around the corner, like the Warsaw one, is recognized by us as a blow directed at us.”
He would later write
“There has never been a persecution of religion in the USSR. The repressions carried out by the Soviet government are applied to them not for their religious convictions, but in the general manner, as well as to other citizens for various anti government acts.. Unfortunately, even to this day, some of us cannot understand that there is no return to the old, and continue to behave like political opponents of the Soviet State.”
And yeah…. That one went over like a lead balloon. At that point the air is going to go right out of the “Renovationst” movement. He was denounced as a heretic and pretty much excommunicated. This will start a period known as the “catacomb church” where most orthodox believers were driven underground. Nearly all clergy that didn't would be shot or sent to labor camps. In the year 1937 alone 87,000 would be executed. The lengths the government would go through to eliminate even the ones that fled into the deepest recesses of the country were incredible to say the least. There was this sort of off shoot of the ROC that had broken away from the church like a long time earlier.. 300 years. They were called the Old Believers. Very traditional. Needless to say they liked to keep to themselves. When the Revolution happened many of them fled into the most desolate parts of Siberia. They were so out there many of them had no idea there was even a first world war let alone a second. In his masterwork Gulag Archipelago Alexander Sodynitsyn writes about what happened when the soviets learned about one groups existence.
Stephen 16:21
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Gulag Archipelago Vol. 3 pg. 366-7
Thats a level of obsessiveness that is just hard to fathom.. Take a look at where the yenesei river is btw on a map. Aside from antarctica it is one of the most remote regions on earth. Right now as of this recording the largest city in the region Yakutsk has a temperature of -37 degrees fahrenheit. To outfit an expedition to find possibly a hundred nobodies.. To trek 800 miles from the nearest railhead?? Over the most impassible terrain on earth?? This is nuts. And this is just an isolated story. You could fill volumes with little vignettes like that.
In 1929 laws were passed against “religious associations” that forbade “all forms of public, social, communal, educational, publishing or missionary activities for believers.
The Church was effectively silenced in the public sphere (but theoretically it existed)
Study groups were banned as were religious processions, picnics, special services, or charities. Adults could attend what services were permitted but children were prohibited.
The calendar was changed so that there was no “sunday” and just in case churches decided to create a day of worship on a day of the week when people didnt have to work… like saturday they introduced a system where the population was divided into shifts with staggered off days. Aside from the few atheistic public holidays there simply woudnt be a time when everyone had the opportunity to attend church if they still had the courage. Eventually, under the infamous Article 58 of the legal code a person could receive a 10 year sentence in a labor camp for trying to convert their own children to Christianity. The charge?? “Anti Soviet Agitation. I could go on but Historian Richard Overy describes what went on pretty well in his book “The Dictators.”
Stephen 21:43
Overy, Richard The Dictators pg. 274-5
Some of the propaganda from the period against religion borders on the absurd. Some of the artwork that the League of the Militant Godless put out really sticks out to me. It's just so on the nose.
You’ll have one where a decomposing Jesus is being torn apart and eaten by clergy and peasants. One lady is eating his intestines like a sausage.
Another has Jesus Floating by with a swastika behind him while a lynched black man hangs from the statue of liberty in front of an american flag held aloft by angels and the words “Gods Country.”
There's one where Jesus holds up a bible and the pope lines up a machine gun at a poor man with a sign on him that says “35 million European Unemployed”
God is depicted as an old man in the sky dumping all sorts of insects and vermin from a perch in the clouds with the caption “God is responsible for plagues.”
Another one has a soviet soldier literally skewering a little version of God on the ground while carrying two fat books entitled “Lenin” and “Technology.”
And everyone gets a piece. Very often you will have the Christian (Jesus or the Old Testament God), a Jewish Rabbi and Mohommed (or a mullah. At least thats what they would say) all getting rolled over by a tractor, flattened by a big “Five Year Plan” sign or something like that.
I've even seen one where a big fat buddha squashes dozens of hapless people by sitting on them and then squeezes a spigot (with swastikas all over it because you know…. Of course) with blood and gold coins flowing out in a torrent into baskets held by rotund monks and Lamas that seem quite drunk.
The Soviets of course are all young, fit, good looking and supremely confident in their atheist belief system. They are wearing work clothes, they love carrying big heavy hammers and more often than not they are joyfully on their way to some big factory with giant smoke stacks. Thats living the dream.
And this type of propaganda isn't limited to the period we are talking about. When the manned Soviet space program kicks off in the 1960s you’ll have one with a cosmonaut floating over the earth with his hand over his eyebrows as if he is looking for something. He’s looking for God and guess what “No God here.” Believe it or not Yuri Garagin would be at the center of a major atheism push that would take place in the 1960’s
As an aside.. And we will certainly get into this later in a big way as early as the mid 1920’s the use of the term fascist and even swastikas were a constant motif in Soviet propaganda. If you think the term “fascist” is overused today… well that is almost a feature of the Soviet conception of the world. To a Soviet the term “fascist” is something that applies to any non Marxist communitarian political conception. In particular ones that fell to the right of Marxist Leninists… Social Democrats in particular but even left leaning Social Revolutionaries or even Anarchists. If you are a Socialist and you are not a Marxist Leninist then you get called a fascist. This is all going down BEFORE the Nazis come to power or even before anyone had heard the name Hitler and definitely before the term had a racial connotation. We shouldn't forget that the regime to use the term that of Mussolini had a number of Jews in its upper leadership. There may have been a nationalistic element there but it was not racial. Now when Hitler comes to power they will throw all the things that we equate with Fascism into the mix but understand this… The term is simply a catch all term for Socialists that are not Marxist Leninists. Odd as it may sound to our ears they will be the main targets for the Soviet state in the coming years. If you want to draw historical comparisons I would use the European religious wars of the 16th and 17th century for comparison. Repression was carried out against people who had essentially the same metaphysical conceptions as one another… Heretics. Those of an entirely different religion ie Muslims or Jews were not the targets. Keep that in mind the next time you hear someone call someone else fascist in the news or on social media. You are in the presence of a term that is not a well defined term that degenerated into a buzzword, No. It began its life 100 years ago as a mudslinging term and has remained one ever since.
Stephen 34:01
This idea that there is some sinister force trying to undermine the great Socialist experiment and ruin the one great hope for mankind is absolutely key to the Soviet moral universe. One might even say its essential. Fascists and Fascism serve as great a role to Marxist Leninists as the Devil does to Christianity… Especially in this period since Fascism to represents the final stage of Capitalism… the stage where it gets desperate and eliminates Socialism. But good will prevail over evil ultimately. After the horror of the tribulation comes the reign of Christ and the saints… at least the Marxist Leninist version of that.
So all traditional belief systems effectively destroyed or driven totally underground what is left? The Soviets understood they couldn’t leave a people so steeped in the mysticism and superstition of Eastern Christianity hanging. If they did, all the old belief systems would come to life again… like zombies coming out of the grave… looking for revenge. No. They understood that nature abhors a vacuum. What they had to do was create a substitute that could not only match but surpass the old. So we've already covered the campaigns against religion but let's explore what the Soviets used as the stand in.
While doing research for the podcast I came across an interesting fellow named Dima Vorobiev. Apparently he used to work in Soviet Propaganda during the Premiership of Gorbachev. He lived in Russia up until the 1990s when he emigrated to the west. On his blog he made the following observation that I think is fairly prescient.
Dima Vorobiev Quora page
So you have this belief about a system that is so infallible it is scientific. It is destined to prevail. That's the essence of “scientific socialism.” You have these cosmic laws of history that point in a direction that is obvious… at least to those whose eyes have been opened to the truth. But there will be those that stray from the path.. Either unintentionally or intentionally. Marxists and Soviets especially believe that human beings are a product of their environment. Like absolutely 100%. This is something that will set them apart from the German National Socialists. Of course you know about Hitler’s views on race. He believes that heredity is the root of everything. In the Nature vs Nurture Battle he’s way out on the nature side. Well the Soviets are way out on the other end of the spectrum and believe me if you take either philosophy to its extreme things can get sinister in a hurry. So they believe that if you put a person in the right environment and instill the Marxist doctrine you can create the perfect “Soviet Man.” The Nazis on the other hand… if you didnt fit their genetic ideal?? Subhuman maybe?? They just want you gone. Initially they wanted the Jews shipped to Madagascar but the idea fell through. They certainly wouldn't try to bang their belief system into your head. The Soviets on the other hand.. Given the right reinforcers and punishments.. They can take every last thing about a person (provided he hasn't been irrevocably corrupted by the capitalist imperialist system) and mold him into whatever they want. This is what indoctrination is about. This is brainwashing.
Think about it.. What sort of a state builds a wall to keep people in?? Not just subjugated people but EVERYONE?? Its easy to take that sort of thing for granted until you really think about it. Why would you want to force people to stay in your country that want to undermine it? Unless of course you feel you can ultimately change their hearts and minds?
Its that “Behaviorism” section of your Psych Intro class kicked into overdrive. Obviously these guys loved their Pavlov. They rejected Freud's idea of psychoanalysis as bourgeois rubbish. This makes sense. As materialists nothing existed to them but the material world. The here. The now. But at the same time the ideology completely enveloped the science.
The work of Marx, Engels and Lenin are on such a pedestal that they are like the tablets Moses brought down from Mt Sinai.
Overy, Richard The Dictators pg. 243-4 (quote)
Then as now when you heard the term “follow the science” the phase was ideologically loaded. Its like they have found a sort of master key or a philosopher's stone that can somehow reveal the secrets of the universe. Lycenko would become a poster child for junk science. Just google the guy. He was a fraud that had most of his opponents executed or sent to the Gulag. Didn't matter. His science was politically useful to socialism so it was embraced wholeheartedly and any Soviet scientist that disagreed learned very quickly that its better to pretend to believe in something you know to be false than step in front of a political buzzsaw.
Stephen 46:46
Overy, Richard The Dictators pg. 266-7 (quote)
How do you argue with someone armed with something like that? And if they have any sort of power how could you hope to resist them? The leadership at this period feels as if its in some sort of struggle against the forces of darkness. They see the world in the starkest terms
Slezkine, Yuri The House of Government pg. 290 (quote)
At the center of everything you have “The Party.” This organization is truly like a religious cult. There’s just no other way to see it. These were individuals who truly thought they were doing the Lord’s work. They lived together. Ate together. Went on trips together. There was a giant building in the heart of Moscow that most of them lived in. It was considered a great honor.
And the Party must spread the good news to achieve its goals. Now that all the traditional beliefs have been annihilated you have to give the common people something new as well.
Slezkine, Yuri The House of Government pg. 275-6 (quote)
Stephen 56:08
So this is an all encompassing regimen. This is a social experiment on the grandest scale possible. There’s no box that has not been checked. You are either hot or cold. No room for the lukewarm. They are to be spit out. Even the architecture of houses is altered. A new type of i guess you could call it a housing project?? Comes about. It will be known as a “Stalinka” People live communally. Kitchens are to be modeled on “factories” with mechanical meat grinders, potato peelers, bread slicers and dishwashers.” The family meal at the end of the day was a thing of the past. A slogan comes out aimed at Soviet women. “We will give you back all the hours stolen from you by the kitchen; one half of your life will be returned to you.” There are group calisthenics, socialist theater… It goes on and on. Of course all of this would look extremely creepy and “big brotherish” to us but keep in mind this is all new. This is science.
Slezkine, Yuri The House of Government pg. 277 (quote)
Now by the late 1920’s you cant even think about the Soviet Union without the name “Stalin” coming to the front of your mind. To say this guy is larger than life would be a huge understatement. He was truly a giant. He was the guy that takes the Soviet Union from the chaos that characterized the post Civil War era and made it into perhaps the greatest superpower on earth. Its popular to view Stalin as a mass murderer, an ego maniac or even a sociopath. Most avowed Communists will do what they can to distance themselves from him and his legacy. The narrative is that sure… Lenin may have committed crimes. He may have ordered the murders of possibly millions but he did it under the strains of Revolution and civil war. If he was harsh it was because he had to be. When he died the Soviet Union was just emerging from that period and had he lived longer perhaps things would have mellowed out and the road to Communism would be clear. Marx’s dream of a classless society could have been realized in perhaps 10 or 20 years. However… Lenin died too soon and through backhanded political maneuvering and strong arm tactics this self centered monster Joseph Stalin wrested all political power to himself and committed just about every evil deed that we associate with Soviet Communism. It wasn’t the idea of Communism that was bad. It was Stalin or even Stalinism that was responsible for all that. Oh if only Lenin had lived!! What wonderful dreams!!! Thats a very convenient story… and one that many academics believed for much of the 20th century and some still do today. The trouble is that it is totally false. How do we know this?? The Soviet archives. When it comes to contemporary scholars that can speak with authority on this subject there is Stephen Kotkin and everyone else. He’s been on the faculty of Princeton upwards of 30 years and is in the middle of a 3 part 3000 plus page biography of the leader and knows more about him than just about anyone on earth.
“The old way of thinking is that Stalin did what he did to consolidate his power. No. he did what he did because he was a communist.”
“Whats the big story of the secret archives? Whats the big story from all those classified documents that were hidden from us all those years which in the past 15 or 20 years have been revealed? The big secret is behind closed doors they spoke the same language, they said the some things that they said in their propaganda. People thought when we read the secret documents we’re finally gonna get the story. No more nonsense about the working class and the bourgeoisie and the imperialists. They are going to talk about what they really think. We can relax now. We’re off camera. Behind the scenes.. All that crap about the proletariat. To hell with that. But instead behind the scenes… here they are. Talking about the proletariat, the kulaks, the imperialists, the bourgeoisie.. All the marxian categories… because it turns out that the communists were communists. They believed in the ideas and its only by taking the ideas and the politics seriously that you can understand the phenomenon.”
Kotkin goes on to make the assertion that until recently people believed that Stalin's primary motivation was personal power. But the problem with that idea is by the late 1920’s he had the personal power already and there were no viable rivals left. People respected Stalin in this period because he stood for something. Yes he is going to muscle a few rivals aside but for the most part people supported Stalin in this period because be was considered to be an orthodox communist. True he was a little to the left of the others but he backed everything he said with his marx and lenin. He was no fool. He read 250 pages a day. Apparently he had read his Communist writers voraciously and even had a bookmarking system of all the major works… although by the time he came to power its said that most of it he knew by heart. A lot of what we think about the image of Stalin is sort of obscured by the cult of personality that revolves around him in his later years but that isn't the case in the 1920s. At this point colleagues will actually turn down or even stand him up to dinner invitations. Can't imagine that later on. He lives on a tiny state stipend.. Much lower than many other Kremlin potentates. Even at his prime he will have no more than five jackets he will wear in public. He sleeps on the couch as a matter of course. He was never known for keeping mistresses like most of the great dictators (hitler notwithstanding) I mean Mussolini and Mao both racked up thousands. There is really nothing about his way of life.. Especially at this point where you can say aha!!! The jerk!! He’s an ego maniac!! Kotkin at no point tries to excuse Stalin. What he does do however is make the case that all of Stalin’s actions had some basis in his understanding of Marxist Leninism. It was literally his religion
Stephen 1:04:20
Kotkin, Stephen Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1939-41 pg. 3-4 (quote)
I don’t want to get into his backstory too much here. Its so easy to try and seek out some sort of Aha moment where he puts the family cat in the microwave. It just doesn't happen. He had an abusive alcoholic father to be sure but thats definitely not newsworthy at this time. He has a wife die of illness early on but that is not unheard of in these times. He is however a committed revolutionary from at least his teenage years. However its interesting how he comes to these beliefs while he is in Tiflis training to become a priest of all things. So in essence he will take that religious devotion and just redirect it. He wasn't flashy. He wasn't grabbing headlines. He was even referred to as a sort of “gray blur.” Like so many he was able to ride the flood tide of Revolution and find himself in a position of power. He wasn't as smart as Lenin, eloquent as Trotsky or even as ruthless as Djergensky. What is unique about Stalin is his single mindedness. This is a man who really bought into the system. In a way you could even say he was a moral man… Moral if you are a Marxist Leninist. His later NKVD Chief Laventry Berier would state that he had an “islamic like fanaticism.”
A bit about how the Soviet Union worked politically. Essentially its based on the idea of Vanguard Socialism. The vanguard or the “leading edge” is supposed to be comprised of a leadership class of educated intellectuals that have both sound Marxist doctrine and adequate revolutionary enthusiasm. Lenin.. Unlike other socialists of his day believed that your typical proletarian or “working class” individual simply didn't have what it takes to make Marx’s ideas come to life in the real world. You need this class of revolutionaries to show the way to everyone else. That would just lead to chaos and division. Now prior to the Russian Revolution most major cities had elected worker’s councils called “Soviets.” It was the job advocate on behalf of the workers in that city. When the Bolsheviks came to power these Soviets all of a sudden gained some real power. I don't want to be too simplistic here but the Bolshevik party was one of many socialist parties that vied against each other at the time. Groups like the SRs and Mensheviks were primary opponents. The Bolshevik party under Lenin and Trotsky effectively eliminated these party members from the soviets and installed their own supporters. Over all the Soviets you would have the national party which would be represented by a national general assembly over which a smaller political bureau or “Politburo” ruled. On its face the system looks as Democratic as could be. Essentially its a representative government of elected representatives that elect their own leadership. In practice however it was a snakepit of internecine rivalry over which the Politburo reigned supreme. The politburo in the 1920s had about 9 members chosen by the General Assembly that were supposed to make decisions by consensus. True, Lenin had almost total power during his lifetime, but that power was due the personal respect people had for him as the “father of the revolution.” Within the Party at least. When he died many expected this “elite within an elite” body to just sort of get along. Not so much Stalin, the General Secretary of the Politburo would come to dominate it in time. In theory the General Secretary of the Politburo wasn't a great office. He didn't even get a vote initially. However he was in charge of setting the agenda and nominating new members. Lenin thought Stalin was a good “behind the scenes'' man and he might be a good fit for such an office. The general secretary was more administrative than anything else. In time Stalin made this low key role into the most powerful office in the land. He effectively created a patronage network with himself at the top. The only leader that might have checked his advance was Trosky.. Since next to Lenin he was the most influential leader of the Revolution and Civil War. Trotsky believed in Marx’s idea of “Permanent Revolution” where Socialist revolutions would happen simultaneously across the world and that it was the duty of the Soviet Union to help that process along. Stalin held fast to the idea of “Socialism in One Country” where the Soviet Union would work on achieving communism at home and then try to export it. To make a long story short. All the European states that might have fallen to Communism.. Germany and Italy in particular failed to do so. People began to see Trotsky as a starry eyed dreamer and an idealist. Stalin meanwhile had his finger on the pulse of the nation. I could get much farther into the rivalries and infighting from this period but I’ll save that for another day.
One takeaway though. Stalin did not murder his way to power. He would certainly murder millions of people but that was after his power was established for the most part. No. People… and by this I mean the Soviet Ruling class supported Stain because he seemed to defend the ideals of the Revolution and wanted to make Communism a reality.
But there already was a Communist government ruling the Soviet Union you say… Well yes and no. Lenin had to crack a lot of skulls to consolidate his grip on the land. Under his policy of “war communism” groups of armed revolutionaries fanned out across the countryside and took grain from the peasantry literally at the barrel of a gun. And at the center of the web was Lenin himself. People looked up to this guy at the time and many still do. This however is part of his biography that tends to be glossed over.
Stephen 1:14:24
Sebetsyen, Victor Lenin, The Master of Terror pg. 394-5 (quote)
Comrades! The kulak uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity ... You must make an example of these people.
(1) Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers.
(2) Publish their names.
(3) Seize all their grain.
(4) Single out the hostages per my instructions in yesterday's telegram.
Do all this so that for miles around people see it all, understand it, tremble, and tell themselves that we are killing the bloodthirsty kulaks and that we will continue to do so ...
Yours, Lenin.
P.S. Find tougher people.
BTW if you didn’t know, a “kulak” is a term used for a “rich” peasant. And by rich I mean like… the guy that has more than one cow.. Or maybe can pay a couple of people to help him out once in a while. These people were all dirt farmers.
In a country with 100 million peasants it wound up being about as popular as you think it might be. It went over like a lead balloon. There were perhaps 200k executions and 1.3 million people may have died of disease and starvation. The economy was in shambles. The terror deserves its own episode for sure. Particularly pernicious was the inflation.
Figes, Orlando A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution pg. 726 (quote)
I guess most people have learned in school or read about the hyperinflation thats gonna happen in Germany after World War I. Well this is just like that only there is this starvation element thats going to happen simultaneously thats going to make this so much more deadly than what happened in Germany but this on an entirely different level. Figes writes:
Figes, Orlando A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution pg. 777-8 (quote)
My point here is that by 1922 the entire Soviet experiment was in danger of collapse. If you don't believe me check out some stats from where Russia was on the eve of the First World War to the end of the Civil War. Industrial production was down 86%. Agricultural production was down 67% Mine and factory production was down 80%. Cotton production was down 95% Iron production was down 98%. Land under cultivation was down 40%. Harvest yield was down 63% and the ruble to dollar exchange rate went from 2 to 1 to 1200 to one. Now in that period Russia only lost 3% of its landmass and about 7% of its population. True there was a World War and Civil War but that cant alone explain this type of economic faceplant. This is what happens when you deliberately remove all safety and economic incentive from a country that in 1913 was the fastest growing in Europe. Globally by that point it might have ranked 3 or 4th in total economic output depending on how you calculate the numbers. You have 5 million people dying of starvation. As many as 1.7 million people were executed by the Cheka. There were 7 million homeless “street children” by 1921. This ain't no workers paradise. This is a goddamn disaster. This is the fastest most catastrophic collapse of any major economy in modern times to date. I defy anyone to find me a parallel. Good luck. So what to do??
Stephen 1:28:54
At this point Lenin (he has what almost looks like a change of heart) introduces something called the New Economic Policy or NEP. He’s desperate. There are really no good options here. Capitalism would be allowed to exist in a sort of “mixed economy” setup where peasants would farm their own plots of land and sell the grain to the state. In the cities private individuals could own small to medium size businesses. This represented a real climb down from the aggressive war Communism everyone had suffered through during the revolution…. Hopefully this would stabilize a dangerous situation.
And wouldn't you know it? The policy worked. And I mean it really worked. The Soviet Union even started to get investment capital from abroad. And….. The area where it was meant to help… agriculture benefited the most.. Now keep in mind the vast majority of these 100 million peasants had no experience of property ownership prior to the revolution. They worked the estates of large landowners or ineffective peasant coops up until now. But now all these millions of small time farmers could work their own land and turn a profit at it. The bumper crops were so great that foodstuffs (from farms that were privately owned) were being created these vast disparities vis a vis the cities because you get this weird scenario the cities for the most part have socialism. Here and there you have a storekeeper or a salesman but for the most part if its a large business it is state owned. Farmers would bring their crops into the city and sell or trade their produce in these open air bazaars and then go back home. They would often reinvest their profits and make their farms more productive. Many people prospered. Now this is not Communism yet. Remember. The plan under the marxist leninist model is Capitalism, Revolution, Socialism… and then Communism. Marx always thought you need an educated and organized industrial society for this revolution to happen. The countryside is problematic. What do you do with these people. Marx never really has a clear idea. The manifesto talks about “Labor armies” in the countryside.. What's that about? During the Civil war millions of peasants get dragooned into giant labor units by Trotsky (and hes following his Marx here) and its a fiasco.
Figes, Orlando A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution pg. 725 (quote)
Not good. Lets change gears guys… Lets compromise.
So under this New Economic Policy the Peasants in the countryside of the former Russian Empire unlike the city dwellers are allowed to do their own thing. Now they are given the OPTION to surrender their property and go into a communal arrangement… a Kolkhoz… but only the ones who have somehow failed at agriculture choose to do so. The rest decide to go it alone and farm their own plots of land just as if they lived in the American Midwest. Now before the Russian Revolution.. Under the Czar if you were a peasant you either worked for a big landlord or you had some sort of communal village type arrangement where land is redistributed time to time so people don't get stuck with crappy farmland all the time or what have you. When the serfs were freed way back in 1861 there was this issue of what to do with them. The solution was for them to get loans from the state and slowly work their way into land ownership. Of course the payments were steep and your still looking at like 50 years to pay off the debt. Not so attractive. But then comes the horror of the world war. Then there’s the Revolution. The Bolsheviks were just one of a number of parties vying for supremacy in the chaos of 1917. Although like most Marxist Socialists they look down on the peasants… you cant ignore 100 million people. Hell… there are all sorts of Anarchist type groups that love the peasants and there is a real history of anarcho socialism in russia. They even had their own army during the Civil War. Lenin basically promises the peasants the one thing they have been pining for well…. Forever. I mean forever forever… LAND. Their own land. Free and clear. No strings attached. It was even part of the Bolshevik slogan PEACE LAND BREAD. Enough of these peasants decide to back the Bolsheviks during the Revolution to put them over the top. Lets not forget in these early days there are like 10,000 Bolsheviks nationwide. They are a drop in the bucket. But this land thing… Well that is quite appealing isn't it? Of course you know what happens next. The Civil War comes and things get ugly. The mass terror. The grain requisitions. The starvation.
Stephen 1:39:34
The peasants come to see these guys as enemies. By 1920 or 1921 for sure you bet they would string Lenin and all his boys to the nearest lamppost if they could. But this New Economic Policy sort of saves the day.
Sebetsyen, Victor Lenin, The Master of Terror pg. 483-4 (quote)
The peasants finally have their own land and they are able to sell the fruit of their labor for a tidy profit. They are happy. The regime gets the breather it desperately needs. We are good right?
Not so fast. These guys may be prospering. The food crisis may be solved but look at what they are doing. This is capitalism. We are supposed to be a marxist leninist state and ⅔ of the country is looking more capitalist than it was under the czar even. And worse yet. They are doing well at it. You are getting record food production from this capitalist countryside and the cities where socialism exists cant keep up. These state run factories are not efficient enough to produce the goods that the country needs. So you get something known as the “scissors crisis.” Food prices will fall while the price for manufactured goods triples in just a couple of years. Farmers are withholding their grain from the market because prices are too low and they cant buy the manufactured goods they want. Now keep in mind that this is a system that all but worships productivity. Take a look at Soviet Propaganda. There is always a factory with smoke stacks in the back. A muscular man with a hammer. Female factory worker with a determined look on her face. Now its like you have capitalism and socialism squaring off in one country and uh oh… capitalism is winning.
Now under a normal circumstances a government should just want whats best for its people right? OK so what. You have a little capitalism in the countryside and you have the socialism in the city. Big deal. At least no one is eating human flesh these days right. Everyone seems like they are doing alright no? A lot of people are starting to make that case… even people in the Politburo. For someone like Stalin. For someone with true Marxist Leininist convictions. This isnt compromise. This is heresy. The Soviet Union is going against its principles. Again whats about to happen makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you treat these guys as religious ideolouges. Stalin will prevail over other Politburo members like Rykov and Bukarin that want to keep the system in place. What he wants is to force socialism on the entire country. From the top down… Isnt that whole idea behind the Marxist Leninist “Vanguard” doctrine?? So while Lenin is alive Stalin will be the ever diligent protege. He and most others won't say a word against the new program. After he is safely mummified in his glass case however its another story. Stalin made his case to the Politburo and they decided to go with it.
Kotkin would say in another interview: (quote)
Stephen 1:47:19
Now a word about Lenin and Stalin. It is true Lenin would denounce Stalin but it was fairly late in the game and by the time it became public it was too late. He made one statement in a letter less than a year before he died. And he never goes after Stalin’s politics. He seems more personally slighted than anything else. He’s rude. Yelled at my wife… That sort of thing. Pretty weak sauce if you are looking for an outright denunciation. If he really wanted Stalin gone he would have backed Trotsky against him but this was not the case. Lenin considered Trotsky arrogant and continued to play him off against Stalin. Stalin was the only one with access to Lenin in the final months of his life and he never made any plans for succession. Meanwhile Stalin forged ahead with his plans.
Snyder, Timothy The Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Staln pg. 13-14
By 1928 Stalin felt he was in the position to make the dream a reality. The revolution… the real revolution must start now. He’s obsessed with the idea that the Soviet state is backwards. It needs a radical catch up plan with the west. Like all Bolsheviks he believes there will be a showdown with the imperialist west and he wanted to be ready.
Figes, Orlando A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution pg. 814-5
The lynchpin of the grand plan and the first true Calamity the Soviet regime would bring down upon its own people would begin now. True, the revolution and the Civil War were awful… but these were times of tremendous upheaval. You could make the case that the regime was fighting for survival. In such a situation perhaps a good deal of repression is understandable. However this is not the situation in 1928. Power is centralized and consolidated. There is zero chance the regime will come crashing down. As of yet the international scene is calm. At home there are no more uprisings. No… this calamity would be in cold blood. This will be a man made disaster. This will be collectivisation.
Slezkine, Yuri The House of Government pg. 299-300
What is about to go down is one of the great tragedies in human history. By many accounts it puts even the Nazi Holocaust in the shade. The Soviet peasantry will be the main targets but the center of the destruction will be a place very much in the news lately… Ukraine.
Outro Music 1:59:26