Stalin as Revolutionary by Tucker Robert C
Author:Tucker, Robert C.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2019-09-15T16:00:00+00:00
Chapter Eight â Power and The Lenin Succession
The Stalin Machine
Like the manner of starting biographies of Stalin, the manner of treating his rise to supremacy in the twenties is governed by certain conventions. One point regularly emphasized is that he succeeded in building the Orgburo-Secretariat complex into a formidable base of party power. Another is that he undid his principal opponents by a series of adroitly executed factional maneuvers in the intra-party politics of the post-Lenin period. Without minimizing the force of these considerations, both of which are true and important, I shall argue that they do not suffice to explain the events of that period in Bolshevismâs history.
In Leninâs mind the party secretaryship was a technicianâs office. Reporting to the Ninth Party Congress in 1920 on how the Central Committee bodies instituted a year earlier were working, he pointedly described the secretary (Krestinsky held the office then) as strictly an executor of the will of the Central Committee, and declared that âonly collegial decisions of the Central Committee, taken in the Orgburo or in the Politburo or by the Central Committee plenum, such questions exclusively were implemented by the secretary of the party Central Committee. The Central Committee cannot otherwise do its work properly.â[478] But this overlooked the secretaryshipâs potentialities as a focal point of power, especially if occupied by a politically ambitious man like Stalin. The Secretariatâs capacity to influence the policy-makersâ agenda placed it in a highly strategic relationship to the partyâs higher deliberative organs, and its appointive powers made it an ideal instrument of machine politics. Lenin later showed his realization of these facts when he referred in the testament to the âboundless powerâ that Stalin had concentrated in his hands by becoming general secretary.
Others, too, although unaware of the testament, began to grow apprehensive over the extent of Stalinâs secretarial power. Zinoviev and Kamenev were among them as they watched the junior member of the Politburo triumvirate become the dominant member during 1923â24. While seeking to use Stalin as a counterweight to Trotsky, Zinoviev became so worried by the counterweightâs growing political power that in the autumn of 1923 he made a move to curb it. He called a number of vacationing party leaders to an informal meeting in a cave near the North Caucasian resort town of Kislovodsk; there he outlined a plan to âpoliticizeâ the Secretariat. He wanted to subordinate the Secretariat to the Politburoâs direct control by appointing two other Politburo membersâTrotsky and either Kamenev, Bukharin, or himselfâas secretaries with authority coequal to Stalinâs. Nothing came of this venture, however, beyond an invitation from Stalin (who knew about the meeting) to Zinoviev, Trotsky, and Bukharin to attend sessions of the Orgburo. Without a footing in the Secretariat, participation in the Orgburoâs deliberations meant very little.[479]
Further moves, similarly abortive, followed in 1925. In January of that year Kamenev suggested Stalin for the postâjust vacated by Trotskyâof chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic, which would have involved his departure from the secretaryship; he was not interested.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson(1302)
Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family by Omid Scobie & Carolyn Durand(1163)
Promised Land (9781524763183) by Obama Barack(1143)
Compromised by Peter Strzok(1063)
Finding Freedom by Omid Scobie(1048)
JFK by Fredrik Logevall(981)
Freedom by Sebastian Junger(623)
Salford Lads: The Rise and Fall of Paul Massey by Bernard O'Mahoney(568)
The Russia House by John Le Carré(554)
Kremlin Winter by Robert Service(517)
Day of the Dead by Mark Roberts(507)
A World Ablaze by Craig Harline(498)
Graveyard (Ed & Lorraine Warren Book 1) by Ed Warren & Lorraine Warren & Robert David Chase(498)
Flying Tiger by Samson Jack(494)
Joe Biden: American Dreamer by Evan Osnos(483)
100 Things Successful Leaders Do by Nigel Cumberland(473)
Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff(472)
The Irish Buddhist by Alicia Turner(464)
The Mission by David W. Brown(451)