(At first unintentionally, I chanced to mention Stalin’s physical appearance in passim in this opening entry of the Stalin series. The ‘amusing à propos’ below shows my reluctance to create a separate entry dedicated to Stalin’s appearance as the main subject. There will be more discussion of Stalin’s appearance and demeanor in the Stalin As Royalty entry later on. These two entries may appear somewhat repetitious in this particular regard, but they are addressing distinctly separate matters and in what concerns Stalin’s physical and mental characteristics, I have been reluctant so far to collect all my scattered references to them under one separate heading. I might still reconsider this matter at a later date, though.)
I have ventured to call him the one and only, and indeed in the seventy-four years of Soviet power there has been no other Soviet leader who could become a towering symbol of Russia’s greatness like this short pock-marked Georgian, who could not even speak Russian well.
(As an amusing à propos, an interviewer asked my father Artem about Stalin’s pockmarks, and got a proper answer in return. “What did Stalin look like? They say that his face has been retouched on all photographs, that in reality it was all heavily pockmarked.”-- “What kind of face did he have, you ask. It was not picture-perfect, but it was good and kind. An attractive face without any blemishes. Yes, there were pockmarks, but they were almost invisible. It was the face of a wise, simple, good man.” It is very true that Stalin was found personally captivating even by some victims of his repressions. A very interesting view of him is offered by the American photographer James Abbe, who had a chance to photograph him in the Kremlin in 1932. Here is his obviously unbiased impression: “There is nothing of the fanatic about Stalin: he is just a deliberate, persistent, calculating person whose faculties co-ordinate. He hasn’t a feature or a physical characteristic that is not commensurate with his record. His whole appearance, so far as I could see, registered strength. A fine stipple of pock-marks covered his face and neck; they suggested his powers of resistance… He had fought a deadly disease, for instance, and had won, somehow the pock-marked effect did not disfigure him, in fact, it was becoming... His smile is spontaneous and effortless, but I doubt if from the pinnacle of power where he sits he sees much that amuses him: little to smile at, nothing to laugh about. I could not conceive of a better example of an underdog who has got on top and immediately realized that underdogs must be kept in their places.” In other words, Stalin’s whole appearance exuded such dignity and power, that even his visible blemishes turned to his advantage, from that projected position of strength. I have no reason to suspect my father of any embellishment, as he pictures Stalin as a kind and generous man. We used to talk about his impressions of Stalin at some length, and I can vouch for their sincerity. His admiration for Stalin was indeed boundless. Insofar as the myth of Stalin’s withered left hand was concerned, Artem insisted that this physical defect was negligible, but did not hesitate to mention that a similar defect belonged to the last German Kaiser Wilhelm II.)
Stalin’s enemies have sometimes referred to him (usually from a distance) as a mediocrity with an oversized ambition. No offense to them, but even without the advantage of historical retrospection, no one in his own mind should ever have called Stalin a mediocrity. Even his littlest pettiness was always big-time.
Stalin had an ego the size of Russia, but kept it squeezed into a nubbin less conspicuous than his tobacco pouch. Only those who had the capacity to discern Stalin’s true nature, and the wisdom not to stand in his way, but to seek unconditional shelter under his wing, that is, men like Molotov and Mikoyan, were able to survive the great purges and live to an old age.
Stalin always knew what he wanted. Before the Revolution, Lenin and most of the other Bolshevik leaders were living abroad, separated from the “home base,” which they claimed to represent. Stalin, on the other hand, made himself indispensable inside Russia. Disdainful of the ideologues in his own party who sought popularity among the industrial workers, or in some other parties, who tried to appeal to the peasants or to the intellectual elite, he instinctively followed the advice of whom else, but the legendary Bakunin, whose keen understanding of Russia’s revolutionary potential was second to none.
It was Bakunin who had found the true power base of the successful revolutionist in his ties to the criminal underworld. Bakunin had called criminals the best, most active, and most creative force, the lifeblood of the nation. To the dismay of his undiscerning comrades, Stalin, in his Siberian exile, demolished the previously impenetrable barrier between the politicals and the felons. He showed his respect to murderers, rapists, and robbers, and they admitted him into their exclusive circle. Because he was a political, they allowed him then to become their undisputed boss.
Stalin’s criminal organization became all-pervasive throughout the Russian Empire, and it was enormously lucrative and effective. Stalin was receiving the lion’s share of loot from bank robberies, major burglaries, extortion and blackmail of prominent and wealthy citizens, as well as from other rackets conducted on the national scale, but he was by nature indifferent to money. He always generously passed most of the booty to Lenin and the Bolshevik crowd, raising acrimonious and loud complaints from other Russian revolutionary parties. These went on to accuse the Bolsheviks of being a bunch of murderous, plundering thugs, which was not entirely true, as this was predominantly Stalin’s own business, in which the other Bolsheviks were mostly beneficiaries, and not participants.
At one time, there was also a big outcry against Stalin himself, but it quickly subsided after his most vocal critics started finding themselves in trouble with Stalin’s henchmen... He may not have been huge in Europe but in Russia he was surely on a roll.
Stalin’s odd behavior during the October 1917 Bolshevik coup, when he took himself completely out of the picture need not surprise historians. By the time of the Revolution, Stalin had unquestionably established himself as the most entrenched and the best organized, among the Bolsheviks. Placing himself to a certain extent above the Revolution, he could afford to lay back and watch Lenin and others risk it all on one bet. Unlike the rest of the Bolshevik leaders, Stalin controlled the critical second echelon, on whose continued support he could count in the event of Lenin’s immediate failure.
And, as I stressed in my Stalin book in much greater detail, a clear division had already existed in the early days of Soviet power between the Stalinists and all the rest (that same division, with only a few exceptions, would later separate the survivors from the victims of the Great Terror).
Stalin’s Wille zur Macht was appreciably advanced during the Civil War, affording him yet another source of unequalled power. Ironically, Stalin's notorious Short Course of the Soviet Communist Party’s History, published in 1938 and condemned by later historians for its crude distortions, is absolutely correct when it names Stalin as the father of the Red Army. The secret is that the Bolsheviks actually had two armies.
The one ostensibly answerable to Trotsky (see my entry Big Joke!) is traditionally known as The Red Army, but, as far as its color was concerned, it was mostly “white” at the core, being based on the former Czarist regular army and staffed by former Czarist officers. These officers had apparently concluded that they had no other moral choice, but to take Lenin’s side, bringing their troops with them, when foreign troops of the Entente powers landed on the Russian soil, to protest Russia’s peace treaty with their enemy Germany. As the Russians were sarcastically observing later on, that foreign intervention, aimed against the Bolsheviks, had actually saved the Bolshevik Revolution, by giving the Russians a worse and common enemy to fight!
The officers of this “Red Army” considered themselves professionals, and looked down upon the Bolshevik “amateurs,” giving their commander Trotsky headaches. Stalin appreciated their military skills, but never trusted them, and subsequently got rid of their whole command structure, on the eve of World War Two. It turned out that, although severely criticized by later historians for decapitating the Soviet Army, Stalin had a large pool of military talent, including sheer genius, to fill the decimated ranks.
…But the other Red Army was authentically Red. It was in fact Stalin’s own private army, organized by him personally with the help of his looted millions as a separate force, under the command of his loyal lieutenant Voroshilov, and staffed, not surprisingly, with all sorts of cutthroats, the most colorful and famous of whom was undoubtedly the former Czarist Sergeant Semyon Budenny.
This army was never put under the control of the central Soviet authority, not even to the modest extent that the other one was. If Lenin wanted to use it, he had to talk to Stalin over Trotsky’s head. It is a monument to Stalin’s prodigious ingenuity that his detractors, and future victims, were so confused by the irregularity and insubordination in the Red Army and kept complaining about it, that all had failed to notice that there was a distinct method to this madness, namely, the existence of two differently organized armies, who were even wearing all-different uniforms, at least in the very beginning. To be more precise, Stalin’s army was kind of motley-dressed, but invariably distinguished by that peculiarly shaped cap, which would become known as the budennovka. This gorgeous cap was so distinctive that soon it was accepted as the most familiar symbol of the Red Army soldier. (The origin of this cap is very curious. It was designed during World War I by the great Russian painter Victor Vasnetsov as a stylized version of the helmet worn in ancient times by Russian mythological warriors, bogatyrs, such as the already mentioned earlier semi-legendary hero Ilya Muromets, and others. The new woolen helmet was thus to provide the historical link between the heroes of old and the heroes of new. Stocks of these were actually produced in pre-Revolutionary times, but were never adopted. It was a stroke of genius for Stalin’s Army to bring this cultural masterpiece to life, adorn it with a large red star, and make it the symbol of the new Red Army. The helmet was not a very practical invention, of course, and it was eventually retired a decade later, but its colossal visual impact and historical national significance are impossible to overstate.)
Stalin’s political strategy in 1921-1922 was no less bravura. As a superb power player, he could match any game that Lenin played, and raise him. Better than anyone else, Stalin was able to appreciate the “enormous power” of the position of Executive Secretary Of the Communist Party (promptly retitled General Secretary by Stalin himself as soon as he got it), which task Stalin most successfully accomplished in April 1922.
Thus in the spring of 1922 the Wonderful Georgian finally emerged from the shadows to claim the third and final component of his key to absolute power. To sum them all up:
(1) He was already in control of an all-pervasive Mafia-style criminal organization in Russia, which was by far more effective than anything Lenin, or anybody else, could ever come up with.
(2) He had his own private army staffed with his dedicated trustworthy loyalists, which was unquestioningly faithful to him.
(3) He now had the post of Party Leader, General Secretary, that gave him an unlimited access to the Party clockwork, and the legitimacy of personal leadership in the one-top-tree Soviet Partocracy.
From now on, his task would be simple: to replace all non-Stalinists with Stalinists, and then, crown himself the Czar of all Russia.
…He was unquestionably up to the colossal task of being the Leader of Russia, so who could blame him for an ambition to match the task itself. And insofar as the chronology of his absolute rule is concerned, I will argue against any historian who gives us the nonsense date of 1926 or environs that it does indeed date back to April 1922!
I have ventured to call him the one and only, and indeed in the seventy-four years of Soviet power there has been no other Soviet leader who could become a towering symbol of Russia’s greatness like this short pock-marked Georgian, who could not even speak Russian well.
(As an amusing à propos, an interviewer asked my father Artem about Stalin’s pockmarks, and got a proper answer in return. “What did Stalin look like? They say that his face has been retouched on all photographs, that in reality it was all heavily pockmarked.”-- “What kind of face did he have, you ask. It was not picture-perfect, but it was good and kind. An attractive face without any blemishes. Yes, there were pockmarks, but they were almost invisible. It was the face of a wise, simple, good man.” It is very true that Stalin was found personally captivating even by some victims of his repressions. A very interesting view of him is offered by the American photographer James Abbe, who had a chance to photograph him in the Kremlin in 1932. Here is his obviously unbiased impression: “There is nothing of the fanatic about Stalin: he is just a deliberate, persistent, calculating person whose faculties co-ordinate. He hasn’t a feature or a physical characteristic that is not commensurate with his record. His whole appearance, so far as I could see, registered strength. A fine stipple of pock-marks covered his face and neck; they suggested his powers of resistance… He had fought a deadly disease, for instance, and had won, somehow the pock-marked effect did not disfigure him, in fact, it was becoming... His smile is spontaneous and effortless, but I doubt if from the pinnacle of power where he sits he sees much that amuses him: little to smile at, nothing to laugh about. I could not conceive of a better example of an underdog who has got on top and immediately realized that underdogs must be kept in their places.” In other words, Stalin’s whole appearance exuded such dignity and power, that even his visible blemishes turned to his advantage, from that projected position of strength. I have no reason to suspect my father of any embellishment, as he pictures Stalin as a kind and generous man. We used to talk about his impressions of Stalin at some length, and I can vouch for their sincerity. His admiration for Stalin was indeed boundless. Insofar as the myth of Stalin’s withered left hand was concerned, Artem insisted that this physical defect was negligible, but did not hesitate to mention that a similar defect belonged to the last German Kaiser Wilhelm II.)
Stalin’s enemies have sometimes referred to him (usually from a distance) as a mediocrity with an oversized ambition. No offense to them, but even without the advantage of historical retrospection, no one in his own mind should ever have called Stalin a mediocrity. Even his littlest pettiness was always big-time.
Stalin had an ego the size of Russia, but kept it squeezed into a nubbin less conspicuous than his tobacco pouch. Only those who had the capacity to discern Stalin’s true nature, and the wisdom not to stand in his way, but to seek unconditional shelter under his wing, that is, men like Molotov and Mikoyan, were able to survive the great purges and live to an old age.
Stalin always knew what he wanted. Before the Revolution, Lenin and most of the other Bolshevik leaders were living abroad, separated from the “home base,” which they claimed to represent. Stalin, on the other hand, made himself indispensable inside Russia. Disdainful of the ideologues in his own party who sought popularity among the industrial workers, or in some other parties, who tried to appeal to the peasants or to the intellectual elite, he instinctively followed the advice of whom else, but the legendary Bakunin, whose keen understanding of Russia’s revolutionary potential was second to none.
It was Bakunin who had found the true power base of the successful revolutionist in his ties to the criminal underworld. Bakunin had called criminals the best, most active, and most creative force, the lifeblood of the nation. To the dismay of his undiscerning comrades, Stalin, in his Siberian exile, demolished the previously impenetrable barrier between the politicals and the felons. He showed his respect to murderers, rapists, and robbers, and they admitted him into their exclusive circle. Because he was a political, they allowed him then to become their undisputed boss.
Stalin’s criminal organization became all-pervasive throughout the Russian Empire, and it was enormously lucrative and effective. Stalin was receiving the lion’s share of loot from bank robberies, major burglaries, extortion and blackmail of prominent and wealthy citizens, as well as from other rackets conducted on the national scale, but he was by nature indifferent to money. He always generously passed most of the booty to Lenin and the Bolshevik crowd, raising acrimonious and loud complaints from other Russian revolutionary parties. These went on to accuse the Bolsheviks of being a bunch of murderous, plundering thugs, which was not entirely true, as this was predominantly Stalin’s own business, in which the other Bolsheviks were mostly beneficiaries, and not participants.
At one time, there was also a big outcry against Stalin himself, but it quickly subsided after his most vocal critics started finding themselves in trouble with Stalin’s henchmen... He may not have been huge in Europe but in Russia he was surely on a roll.
Stalin’s odd behavior during the October 1917 Bolshevik coup, when he took himself completely out of the picture need not surprise historians. By the time of the Revolution, Stalin had unquestionably established himself as the most entrenched and the best organized, among the Bolsheviks. Placing himself to a certain extent above the Revolution, he could afford to lay back and watch Lenin and others risk it all on one bet. Unlike the rest of the Bolshevik leaders, Stalin controlled the critical second echelon, on whose continued support he could count in the event of Lenin’s immediate failure.
And, as I stressed in my Stalin book in much greater detail, a clear division had already existed in the early days of Soviet power between the Stalinists and all the rest (that same division, with only a few exceptions, would later separate the survivors from the victims of the Great Terror).
Stalin’s Wille zur Macht was appreciably advanced during the Civil War, affording him yet another source of unequalled power. Ironically, Stalin's notorious Short Course of the Soviet Communist Party’s History, published in 1938 and condemned by later historians for its crude distortions, is absolutely correct when it names Stalin as the father of the Red Army. The secret is that the Bolsheviks actually had two armies.
The one ostensibly answerable to Trotsky (see my entry Big Joke!) is traditionally known as The Red Army, but, as far as its color was concerned, it was mostly “white” at the core, being based on the former Czarist regular army and staffed by former Czarist officers. These officers had apparently concluded that they had no other moral choice, but to take Lenin’s side, bringing their troops with them, when foreign troops of the Entente powers landed on the Russian soil, to protest Russia’s peace treaty with their enemy Germany. As the Russians were sarcastically observing later on, that foreign intervention, aimed against the Bolsheviks, had actually saved the Bolshevik Revolution, by giving the Russians a worse and common enemy to fight!
The officers of this “Red Army” considered themselves professionals, and looked down upon the Bolshevik “amateurs,” giving their commander Trotsky headaches. Stalin appreciated their military skills, but never trusted them, and subsequently got rid of their whole command structure, on the eve of World War Two. It turned out that, although severely criticized by later historians for decapitating the Soviet Army, Stalin had a large pool of military talent, including sheer genius, to fill the decimated ranks.
…But the other Red Army was authentically Red. It was in fact Stalin’s own private army, organized by him personally with the help of his looted millions as a separate force, under the command of his loyal lieutenant Voroshilov, and staffed, not surprisingly, with all sorts of cutthroats, the most colorful and famous of whom was undoubtedly the former Czarist Sergeant Semyon Budenny.
This army was never put under the control of the central Soviet authority, not even to the modest extent that the other one was. If Lenin wanted to use it, he had to talk to Stalin over Trotsky’s head. It is a monument to Stalin’s prodigious ingenuity that his detractors, and future victims, were so confused by the irregularity and insubordination in the Red Army and kept complaining about it, that all had failed to notice that there was a distinct method to this madness, namely, the existence of two differently organized armies, who were even wearing all-different uniforms, at least in the very beginning. To be more precise, Stalin’s army was kind of motley-dressed, but invariably distinguished by that peculiarly shaped cap, which would become known as the budennovka. This gorgeous cap was so distinctive that soon it was accepted as the most familiar symbol of the Red Army soldier. (The origin of this cap is very curious. It was designed during World War I by the great Russian painter Victor Vasnetsov as a stylized version of the helmet worn in ancient times by Russian mythological warriors, bogatyrs, such as the already mentioned earlier semi-legendary hero Ilya Muromets, and others. The new woolen helmet was thus to provide the historical link between the heroes of old and the heroes of new. Stocks of these were actually produced in pre-Revolutionary times, but were never adopted. It was a stroke of genius for Stalin’s Army to bring this cultural masterpiece to life, adorn it with a large red star, and make it the symbol of the new Red Army. The helmet was not a very practical invention, of course, and it was eventually retired a decade later, but its colossal visual impact and historical national significance are impossible to overstate.)
Stalin’s political strategy in 1921-1922 was no less bravura. As a superb power player, he could match any game that Lenin played, and raise him. Better than anyone else, Stalin was able to appreciate the “enormous power” of the position of Executive Secretary Of the Communist Party (promptly retitled General Secretary by Stalin himself as soon as he got it), which task Stalin most successfully accomplished in April 1922.
Thus in the spring of 1922 the Wonderful Georgian finally emerged from the shadows to claim the third and final component of his key to absolute power. To sum them all up:
(1) He was already in control of an all-pervasive Mafia-style criminal organization in Russia, which was by far more effective than anything Lenin, or anybody else, could ever come up with.
(2) He had his own private army staffed with his dedicated trustworthy loyalists, which was unquestioningly faithful to him.
(3) He now had the post of Party Leader, General Secretary, that gave him an unlimited access to the Party clockwork, and the legitimacy of personal leadership in the one-top-tree Soviet Partocracy.
From now on, his task would be simple: to replace all non-Stalinists with Stalinists, and then, crown himself the Czar of all Russia.
…He was unquestionably up to the colossal task of being the Leader of Russia, so who could blame him for an ambition to match the task itself. And insofar as the chronology of his absolute rule is concerned, I will argue against any historian who gives us the nonsense date of 1926 or environs that it does indeed date back to April 1922!
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