Nikita Khrushchev
Reference Archive
(Sub Archive of Soviet Government Documents)
(Sub Archive of Soviet Government Documents)
Speech to 20th
Congress of the C.P.S.U.
Speech Delivered:
February 24-25 1956;
At the Twentieth
Congress of the CPSU February 24-25 1956, Khrushchev delivered a report in
which he denounced Stalin’s crimes and the ‘cult of personality’ surrounding
Stalin. This speech would ultimately trigger a world-wide split:
Comrades! In the
Party Central Committee’s report at the 20th Congress and in a number of speeches
by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during Plenary CC/CPSU [Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has
been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences.
After Stalin’s death,
the Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and
consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of
Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman
possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man
supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do
anything, is infallible in his behavior.
Such a belief about
a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The
objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin’s life
and activity. Concerning Stalin’s merits, an entirely sufficient number of
books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role
of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the
Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country,
is universally known. Everyone knows it well.
At present, we are
concerned with a question which has immense importance for the Party now and
for the future – with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually
growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a
whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party principles,
of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.
Because not all as
yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the
individual, [or] the great harm caused by violation of the principle of
collective Party direction and by the accumulation of immense and limitless
power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee considers it absolutely
necessary to make material pertaining to this matter available to the 20th
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Allow me first of
all to remind you how severely the classics of Marxism-Leninism denounced every
manifestation of the cult of the individual. In a letter to the German
political worker Wilhelm Bloss, [Karl] Marx stated:
“From my antipathy
to any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the
[1st] International the numerous addresses from various countries which
recognized my merits and which annoyed me. I did not even reply to them, except
sometimes to rebuke their authors. [Fredrich] Engels and I first joined the
secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for
superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statute.
[Ferdinand] Lassalle subsequently did quite the opposite.”
Sometime later Engels
wrote:
“Both Marx and I
have always been against any public manifestation with regard to individuals,
with the exception of cases when it had an important purpose. We most strongly
opposed such manifestations which during our lifetime concerned us personally.”
The great modesty of
the genius of the Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is known. Lenin always
stressed the role of the people as the creator of history, the directing and
organizational roles of the Party as a living and creative organism, and also
the role of the Central Committee.
Marxism does not
negate the role of the leaders of the working class in directing the
revolutionary liberation movement.
While ascribing
great importance to the role of the leaders and organizers of the masses, Lenin
at the same time mercilessly stigmatized every manifestation of the cult of the
individual, inexorably combated [any] foreign-to-Marxism views about a “hero”
and a “crowd,” and countered all efforts to oppose a “hero” to the masses and
to the people.
Lenin taught that
the Party’s strength depends on its indissoluble unity with the masses, on the
fact that behind the Party follows the people – workers, peasants, and the
intelligentsia. Lenin said:
“Only he who
believes in the people, [he] who submerges himself in the fountain of the
living creativeness of the people, will win and retain power.”
Lenin spoke with
pride about the Bolshevik Communist Party as the leader and teacher of the
people. He called for the presentation of all the most important questions
before the opinion of knowledgeable workers, before the opinion of their Party.
He said:
“We believe in it,
we see in it the wisdom, the honor, and the conscience of our epoch.”
Lenin resolutely
stood against every attempt aimed at belittling or weakening the directing role
of the Party in the structure of the Soviet state. He worked out Bolshevik
principles of Party direction and norms of Party life, stressing that the
guiding principle of Party leadership is its collegiality. Already during the
pre-Revolutionary years, Lenin called the Central Committee a collective of
leaders and the guardian and interpreter of Party principles. “During the
period between congresses,” Lenin pointed out, “the Central Committee guards
and interprets the principles of the Party.”
Underlining the role
of the Central Committee and its authority, Vladimir Ilyich pointed out:
“Our Central
Committee constituted itself as a closely centralized and highly authoritative
group.”
During Lenin’s life
the Central Committee was a real expression of collective leadership: of the
Party and of the nation. Being a militant Marxist-revolutionist, always
unyielding in matters of principle, Lenin never imposed his views upon his
co-workers by force. He tried to convince. He patiently explained his opinions
to others. Lenin always diligently saw to it that the norms of Party life were
realized, that Party statutes were enforced, that Party congresses and Plenary
sessions of the Central Committee took place at their proper intervals.
In addition to V. I.
Lenin’s great accomplishments for the victory of the working class and of the
working peasants, for the victory of our Party and for the application of the
ideas of scientific Communism to life, his acute mind expressed itself also in
this. [Lenin] detected in Stalin in time those negative characteristics which
resulted later in grave consequences. Fearing the future fate of the Party and
of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of
Stalin. He pointed out that it was necessary to consider transferring Stalin
from the position of [Party] General Secretary because Stalin was excessively
rude, did not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, and was capricious
and abused his power.
In December 1922, in
a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote:
“After taking over
the position of General Secretary, comrade Stalin accumulated immeasurable
power in his hands and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use
this power with the required care.”
This letter – a
political document of tremendous importance, known in the Party’s history as
Lenin’s “Testament” - was distributed among [you] delegates to [this] 20th
Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than
once. You might reflect on Lenin’s plain words, in which expression is given to
Vladimir Ilyich’s anxiety concerning the Party, the people, the state, and the
future direction of Party policy.
Vladimir Ilyich
said:
“Stalin is
excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst
and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated
in one holding the position of General Secretary. Because of this, I propose
that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from
this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who,
above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater
tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude
toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.”
This document of
Lenin’s was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress, who
discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of General
Secretary. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in
this post, hoping that he would heed Vladimir Ilyich’s critical remarks and
would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety.
Comrades! The Party
Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm
Stalin’s character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his
“Testament.” These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya
to [Lev] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Politbiuro, and a personal
letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.
I will now read
these documents:
“LEV BORISOVICH!
“Because of a short
letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by
permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude
outburst directed at me.
This is not my first
day in the Party. During all these 30 years I have never heard one word of
rudeness from any comrade. The Party’s and Ilyich’s business is no less dear to
me than to Stalin. I need maximum self-control right now. What one can and what
one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know
what makes him nervous and what does not. In any case I know [it] better than
Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigory [Zinoviev] as much closer comrades
of V[ladimir] I[lyich]. I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my
private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt what the
Control Commission’s unanimous decision [in this matter], with which Stalin
sees fit to threaten me, will be. However I have neither strength nor time to
waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a human being and my nerves are
strained to the utmost.
“N. KRUPSKAYA”
Nadezhda
Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half
months, in March 1923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:
“TO COMRADE STALIN
(COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV):
“Dear comrade
Stalin!
“You permitted
yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of
her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was
said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Kamenev heard about it from her. I have no
intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me. I need not
stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done
against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are
agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing, or whether you prefer the
severance of relations between us.
“SINCERELY: LENIN,
MARCH 5, 1923” (Commotion in the hall.)
Comrades! I will not comment on these
documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in
this manner during Lenin’s life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda
Konstantinovna Krupskaya – whom the Party knows well and values highly as a
loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the Party since
its creation – we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These
negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years
acquired an absolutely insufferable character.
As later events have
proven, Lenin’s anxiety was justified. In the first period after Lenin’s death,
Stalin still paid attention to his advice, but later he began to disregard the
serious admonitions of Vladimir Ilyich. When we analyze the practice of Stalin
in regard to the direction of the Party and of the country, when we pause to
consider everything which Stalin perpetrated, we must be convinced that Lenin’s
fears were justified. The negative characteristics of Stalin, which, in Lenin’s
time, were only incipient, transformed themselves during the last years into a
grave abuse of power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our Party.
We have to consider
seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any
possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the
life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and
in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which
opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic
character, contrary to his concepts.
Stalin acted not
through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by
imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever
opposed these concepts or tried to prove his [own] viewpoint and the
correctness of his [own] position was doomed to removal from the leadership collective
and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation. This was especially true
during the period following the 17th Party Congress, when many prominent Party
leaders and rank-and-file Party workers, honest and dedicated to the cause of
Communism, fell victim to Stalin’s despotism.
We must affirm that
the Party fought a serious fight against the Trotskyites, rightists and
bourgeois nationalists, and that it disarmed ideologically all the enemies of
Leninism. This ideological fight was carried on successfully, as a result of
which the Party became strengthened and tempered. Here Stalin played a positive
role.
The Party led a
great political-ideological struggle against those in its own ranks who
proposed anti-Leninist theses, who represented a political line hostile to the
Party and to the cause of socialism. This was a stubborn and a difficult fight
but a necessary one, because the political line of both the
Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc and of the Bukharinites led actually toward the
restoration of capitalism and toward capitulation to the world bourgeoisie. Let
us consider for a moment what would have happened if in 1928-1929 the political
line of right deviation had prevailed among us, or orientation toward
“cotton-dress industrialization,” or toward the kulak, etc. We would not now
have a powerful heavy industry; we would not have the kolkhozes; we would find ourselves
disarmed and weak in a capitalist encirclement.
It was for this
reason that the Party led an inexorable ideological fight, explaining to all
[its] members and to the non-Party masses the harm and the danger of the
anti-Leninist proposals of the Trotskyite opposition and the rightist
opportunists. And this great work of explaining the Party line bore fruit. Both
the Trotskyites and the rightist opportunists were politically isolated. An
overwhelming Party majority supported the Leninist line, and the Party was able
to awaken and organize the working masses to apply the Leninist line and to
build socialism.
A fact worth noting
is that extreme repressive measures were not used against the Trotskyites, the
Zinovievites, the Bukharinites, and others during the course of the furious
ideological fight against them. The fight [in the 1920s] was on ideological
grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally
constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when Soviet
social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political
movements and groups hostile to the Party had violently contracted, when the
ideological opponents of the Party were long since defeated politically – then
repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period
(1935-1937-1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government
apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism – Trotskyites,
Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the Party – and
subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those Party cadres
who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult
years of industrialization and collectivization, who had fought actively
against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist Party line.
Stalin originated
the concept “enemy of the people.” This term automatically made it unnecessary
that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven.
It made possible the use of the cruelest repression, violating all norms of
revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin,
against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had
bad reputations. The concept “enemy of the people” actually eliminated the
possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one’s views known
on this or that issue, even [issues] of a practical nature. On the whole, the
only proof of guilt actually used, against all norms of current legal science,
was the “confession” of the accused himself. As subsequent probing has proven,
“confessions” were acquired through physical pressures against the accused.
This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that
many entirely innocent individuals – [persons] who in the past had defended the
Party line – became victims.
We must assert that,
in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the Party line, there
were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The
formula “enemy of the people” was specifically introduced for the purpose of
physically annihilating such individuals.
It is a fact that
many persons who were later annihilated as enemies of the Party and people had
worked with Lenin during his life. Some of these persons had made errors during
Lenin’s life, but, despite this, Lenin benefited by their work; he corrected
them and he did everything possible to retain them in the ranks of the Party;
he induced them to follow him.
In this connection
the delegates to the Party Congress should familiarize themselves with an
unpublished note by V. I. Lenin directed to the Central Committee’s Politbiuro
in October 1920. Outlining the duties of the [Party] Control Commission, Lenin
wrote that the Commission should be transformed into a real “organ of Party and
proletarian conscience.”
“As a special duty
of the Control Commission there is recommended a deep, individualized
relationship with, and sometimes even a type of therapy for, the
representatives of the so-called opposition – those who have experienced a
psychological crisis because of failure in their Soviet or Party career. An
effort should be made to quiet them, to explain the matter to them in a way
used among comrades, to find for them (avoiding the method of issuing orders) a
task for which they are psychologically fitted. Advice and rules relating to
this matter are to be formulated by the Central Committee’s Organizational
Bureau, etc.”
Everyone knows how
irreconcilable Lenin was with the ideological enemies of Marxism, with those
who deviated from the correct Party line. At the same time, however, Lenin, as
is evident from the given document, in his practice of directing the Party
demanded the most intimate Party contact with people who had shown indecision
or temporary non-conformity with the Party line, but whom it was possible to
return to the Party path. Lenin advised that such people should be patiently
educated without the application of extreme methods.
Lenin’s wisdom in
dealing with people was evident in his work with cadres.
An entirely
different relationship with people characterized Stalin. Lenin’s traits –
patient work with people, stubborn and painstaking education of them, the
ability to induce people to follow him without using compulsion, but rather
through the ideological influence on them of the whole collective – were
entirely foreign to Stalin. He discarded the Leninist method of convincing and
educating, he abandoned the method of ideological struggle for that of
administrative violence, mass repressions and terror. He acted on an
increasingly larger scale and more stubbornly through punitive organs, at the
same time often violating all existing norms of morality and of Soviet laws.
Arbitrary behavior
by one person encouraged and permitted arbitrariness in others. Mass arrests
and deportations of many thousands of people, execution without trial and
without normal investigation created conditions of insecurity, fear and even
desperation.
This, of course, did
not contribute toward unity of the Party ranks and of all strata of working
people, but, on the contrary, brought about annihilation and the expulsion from
the Party of workers who were loyal but inconvenient to Stalin.
Our Party fought for
the implementation of Lenin’s plans for the construction of socialism. This was
an ideological fight. Had Leninist principles been observed during the course
of this fight, had the Party’s devotion to principles been skillfully combined
with a keen and solicitous concern for people, had they not been repelled and
wasted but rather drawn to our side, we certainly would not have had such a
brutal violation of revolutionary legality and many thousands of people would
not have fallen victim to the method of terror. Extraordinary methods would
then have been resorted to only against those people who had in fact committed
criminal acts against the Soviet system.
Let us recall some
historical facts.
In the days before
the October Revolution, two members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik
Party – Kamenev and Zinoviev – declared themselves against Lenin’s plan for an
armed uprising. In addition, on October 18 they published in the Menshevik
newspaper, Novaya Zhizn, a statement declaring that the Bolsheviks were
making preparations for an uprising and that they considered it adventuristic.
Kamenev and Zinoviev thus disclosed to the enemy the decision of the Central
Committee to stage the uprising, and that the uprising had been organized to
take place within the very near future.
This was treason
against the Party and against the Revolution. In this connection, V. I. Lenin
wrote: “Kamenev and Zinoviev revealed the decision of the Central Committee of
their Party on the armed uprising to [Mikhail] Rodzyanko and [Alexander]
Kerensky.... He put before the Central Committee the question of Zinoviev’s and
Kamenev’s expulsion from the Party.
However, after the
Great Socialist October Revolution, as is known, Zinoviev and Kamenev were
given leading positions. Lenin put them in positions in which they carried out
most responsible Party tasks and participated actively in the work of the
leading Party and Soviet organs. It is known that Zinoviev and Kamenev
committed a number of other serious errors during Lenin’s life. In his
“Testament” Lenin warned that “Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s October episode was of
course not an accident.” But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest
and certainly not their shooting.
Or, let us take the
example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical
period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm
and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around
Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois
society. Part of them belonged to the Party intelligentsia and a certain part
were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in
their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an
active part in the workers’ movement before the Revolution, during the
Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the
victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and
returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? We
are deeply convinced that, had Lenin lived, such an extreme method would not
have been used against any of them.
Such are only a few
historical facts. But can it be said that Lenin did not decide to use even the
most severe means against enemies of the Revolution when this was actually
necessary? No; no one can say this. Vladimir Ilyich demanded uncompromising
dealings with the enemies of the Revolution and of the working class and when
necessary resorted ruthlessly to such methods. You will recall only V. I.
Lenin’s fight with the Socialist Revolutionary organizers of the anti-Soviet
uprising, with the counterrevolutionary kulaks in 1918 and with others, when
Lenin without hesitation used the most extreme methods against the enemies.
Lenin used such methods, however, only against actual class enemies and not
against those who blunder, who err, and whom it was possible to lead through
ideological influence and even retain in the leadership. Lenin used severe
methods only in the most necessary cases, when the exploiting classes were
still in existence and were vigorously opposing the Revolution, when the
struggle for survival was decidedly assuming the sharpest forms, even including
a Civil War.
Stalin, on the other
hand, used extreme methods and mass repressions at a time when the Revolution
was already victorious, when the Soviet state was strengthened, when the
exploiting classes were already liquidated and socialist relations were rooted
solidly in all phases of national economy, when our Party was politically
consolidated and had strengthened itself both numerically and ideologically.
It is clear that
here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality
and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and
mobilizing the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical
annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who
had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet Government. Here
we see no wisdom but only a demonstration of the brutal force which had once so
alarmed V. I. Lenin.
Lately, especially
after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a
series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of
brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin. As facts
prove, Stalin, using his unlimited power, allowed himself many abuses, acting
in the name of the Central Committee, not asking for the opinion of the Committee
members nor even of the members of the Central Committee’s Politbiuro; often he
did not inform them about his personal decisions concerning very important
Party and government matters.
Considering the
question of the cult of an individual, we must first of all show everyone what
harm this caused to the interests of our Party.
Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin had always stressed the Party’s role and significance in the direction of
the socialist government of workers and peasants; he saw in this the chief precondition
for a successful building of socialism in our country. Pointing to the great
responsibility of the Bolshevik Party, as ruling Party of the Soviet state,
Lenin called for the most meticulous observance of all norms of Party life; he
called for the realization of the principles of collegiality in the direction
of the Party and the state.
Collegiality of
leadership flows from the very nature of our Party, a Party built on the
principles of democratic centralism. “This means,” said Lenin,
“that all Party
matters are accomplished by all Party members – directly or through
representatives – who, without any exceptions, are subject to the same rules;
in addition, all administrative members, all directing collegia, all holders of
Party positions are elective, they must account for their activities and are
recallable.”
It is known that Lenin
himself offered an example of the most careful observance of these principles.
There was no matter so important that Lenin himself decided it without asking
for advice and approval of the majority of the Central Committee members or of
the members of the Central Committee’s Politbiuro. In the most difficult period
for our Party and our country, Lenin considered it necessary regularly to
convoke Congresses, Party Conferences and Plenary sessions of the Central
Committee at which all the most important questions were discussed and where
resolutions, carefully worked out by the collective of leaders, were approved.
We can recall, for
an example, the year 1918 when the country was threatened by the attack of the
imperialistic interventionists. In this situation the 7th Party Congress was
convened in order to discuss a vitally important matter which could not be
postponed – the matter of peace. In 1919, while the Civil War was raging, the
8th Party Congress convened which adopted a new Party program, decided such
important matters as the relationship with the peasant masses, the organization
of the Red Army, the leading role of the Party in the work of the soviets, the
correction of the social composition of the Party, and other matters. In 1920
the 9th Party Congress was convened which laid down guiding principles
pertaining to the Party’s work in the sphere of economic construction. In 1921
the 10th Party Congress accepted Lenin’s New Economic Policy and the historic
resolution called “On Party Unity.”
During Lenin’s life,
Party congresses were convened regularly; always, when a radical turn in the
development of the Party and the country took place, Lenin considered it absolutely
necessary that the Party discuss at length all the basic matters pertaining to
internal and foreign policy and to questions bearing on the development of
Party and government.
It is very
characteristic that Lenin addressed to the Party Congress as the highest Party
organ his last articles, letters and remarks. During the period between
congresses, the Central Committee of the Party, acting as the most
authoritative leading collective, meticulously observed the principles of the
Party and carried out its policy.
So it was during
Lenin’s life. Were our Party’s holy Leninist principles observed after the
death of Vladimir Ilyich?
Whereas, during the
first few years after Lenin’s death, Party Congresses and Central Committee
Plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began
increasingly to abuse his power, these principles were brutally violated. This
was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal
situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party
Congresses, years during which our Party and our country had experienced so
many important events? These events demanded categorically that the Party
should have passed resolutions pertaining to the country’s defense during the
[Great] Patriotic War and to peacetime construction after the war.
Even after the end
of the war a Congress was not convened for over seven years. Central Committee
Plenums were hardly ever called. It should be sufficient to mention that during
all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee Plenum took
place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum
in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were
called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the Plenum, but in
vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee
members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the
war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee
members.
In practice, Stalin
ignored the norms of Party life and trampled on the Leninist principle of
collective Party leadership.
Stalin’s willfulness
vis a vis the Party and its Central Committee became fully evident after the
17th Party Congress, which took place in 1934.
Having at its
disposal numerous data showing brutal willfulness toward Party cadres, the
Central Committee has created a Party commission under the control of the Central
Committee’s Presidium. It has been charged with investigating what made
possible mass repressions against the majority of the Central Committee members
and candidates elected at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks).
The commission has
become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and
with other documents. It has established many facts pertaining to the
fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, [and] to glaring
abuses of socialist legality, which resulted in the death of innocent people.
It became apparent that many Party, Soviet and economic activists who in 1937-1938
were branded “enemies” were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but
were always honest Communists. They were merely stigmatized [as enemies].
Often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at
the order of the investigative judges/falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and
unlikely crimes.
The commission has
presented to the Central Committee’s Presidium lengthy and documented materials
pertaining to mass repressions against the delegates to the 17th Party Congress
and against members of the Central Committee elected at that Congress. These
materials have been studied by the Presidium.
It was determined
that of the 139 members and candidates of the Central Committee who were
elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 per cent, were arrested and
shot (mostly in 1937-1938). (Indignation in the hall.) What was the composition
of the delegates to the 17th Congress? It is known that 80 per cent of the
voting participants of the 17th Congress joined the Party during the years of
conspiracy before the Revolution and during the Civil War, i.e. meaning before
1921. By social origin the basic mass of the delegates to the Congress were
workers (60 per cent of the voting members).
For this reason, it
is inconceivable that a Congress so composed could have elected a Central
Committee in which a majority [of the members] would prove to be enemies of the
Party. The only reasons why 70 per cent of the Central Committee members and
candidates elected at the 17th Congress were branded as enemies of the Party
and of the people were because honest Communists were slandered, accusations
against them were fabricated, and revolutionary legality was gravely
undermined.
The same fate met
not only Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to
the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory
rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes,
i.e., decidedly more than a majority. This very fact shows how absurd, wild and
contrary to common sense were the charges of counterrevolutionary crimes made
out, as we now see, against a majority of participants at the 17th Party
Congress.
(Indignation in the hall.)
We should recall
that the 17th Party Congress is known historically as the Congress of Victors.
Delegates to the Congress were active participants in the building of our
socialist state; many of them suffered and fought for Party interests during
the pre-Revolutionary years in the conspiracy and at the civil-war fronts; they
fought their enemies valiantly and often nervelessly looked into the face of
death.
How, then, can we
believe that such people could prove to be “two-faced” and had joined the camps
of the enemies of socialism during the era after the political liquidation of
Zinovievites, Trotskyites and rightists and after the great accomplishments of
socialist construction? This was the result of the abuse of power by Stalin,
who began to use mass terror against Party cadres.
What is the reason
that mass repressions against activists increased more and more after the 17th
Party Congress? It was because at that time Stalin had so elevated himself
above the Party and above the nation that he ceased to consider either the
Central Committee or the Party.
Stalin still
reckoned with the opinion of the collective before the 17th Congress. After the
complete political liquidation of the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and
Bukharinites, however, when the Party had achieved unity, Stalin to an ever
greater degree stopped considering the members of the Party’s Central Committee
and even the members of the Politbiuro. Stalin thought that now he could decide
all things alone and that all he needed were statisticians. He treated all
others in such a way that they could only listen to him and praise him.
After the criminal
murder of Sergey M. Kirov, mass repressions and brutal acts of violation of
socialist legality began. On the evening of December 1, 1934 on Stalin’s
initiative (without the approval of the Politbiuro –which was given two days
later, casually), the Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive
Committee, [Abel] Yenukidze, signed the following directive:
“1. Investigative
agencies are directed to speed up the cases of those accused of the preparation
or execution of acts of terror.
“2. Judicial organs
are directed not to hold up the execution of death sentences pertaining to
crimes of this category in order to consider the possibility of pardon, because
the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider
as possible the receiving of petitions of this sort.
“3. The organs of
the Commissariat of Internal Affairs [NKVD] are directed to execute the death
sentences against criminals of the above-mentioned category immediately after
the passage of sentences.”
This directive
became the basis for mass acts of abuse against socialist legality. During many
of the fabricated court cases, the accused were charged with “the preparation”
of terroristic acts; this deprived them of any possibility that their cases
might be re-examined, even when they stated before the court that their
“confessions” were secured by force, and when, in a convincing manner, they
disproved the accusations against them.
It must be asserted
that to this day the circumstances surrounding Kirov’s murder hide many things
which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination.
There are reasons for the suspicion that the killer of Kirov, [Leonid]
Nikolayev, was assisted by someone from among the people whose duty it was to
protect the person of Kirov.
A month and a half
before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious
behavior but he was released and not even searched. It is an unusually
suspicious circumstance that when the Chekist assigned to protect Kirov was
being brought for an interrogation, on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car
“accident” in which no other occupants of the car were harmed. After the murder
of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were given very light
sentences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume that they were shot in
order to cover up the traces of the organizers of Kirov’s killing.
(Movement in the hall.)
Mass repressions
grew tremendously from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and
[Andrey] Zhdanov, dated from Sochi on September 25, 1936, was addressed to
[Lazar] Kaganovich, [Vyacheslav] Molotov and other members of the Politbiuro.
The content of the telegram was as follows:
“We deem it absolutely
necessary and urgent that comrade [Nikolay] Yezhov be nominated to the post of
People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs. [Genrikh] Yagoda definitely has proven
himself incapable of unmasking the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc. The OGPU is
four years behind in this matter. This is noted by all Party workers and by the
majority of the representatives of the NKVD.”
Strictly speaking,
we should stress that Stalin did not meet with and, therefore, could not know
the opinion of Party workers.
This Stalinist
formulation that the “NKVD is four years behind” in applying mass repression
and that there is a necessity for “catching up” with the neglected work directly
pushed the NKVD workers on the path of mass arrests and executions.
We should state that
this formulation was also forced on the February-March Plenary session of the
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1937. The
Plenary resolution approved it on the basis of Yezhov’s report, “Lessons
flowing from the harmful activity, diversion and espionage of the Japanese-German-Trotskyite
agents,” stating:
“The Plenum of the
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers that
all facts revealed during the investigation into the matter of an anti-Soviet
Trotskyite center and of its followers in the provinces show that the People’s
Commissariat of Internal Affairs has fallen behind at least four years in the
attempt to unmask these most inexorable enemies of the people.”
The mass repressions
at this time were made under the slogan of a fight against the Trotskyites. Did
the Trotskyites at this time actually constitute such a danger to our Party and
to the Soviet state? We should recall that in 1927, on the eve of the 15th
Party Congress, only some 4,000 [Party] votes were cast for the Trotskyite-Zinovievite
opposition while there were 724,000 for the Party line. During the 10 years
which passed between the 15th Party Congress and the February-March Central
Committee Plenum, Trotskyism was completely disarmed. Many former Trotskyites
changed their former views and worked in the various sectors building
socialism. It is clear that in the situation of socialist victory there was no
basis for mass terror in the country.
Stalin’s report at
the February-March Central Committee Plenum in 1937, “Deficiencies of Party
work and methods for the liquidation of the Trotskyites and of other
two-facers,” contained an attempt at theoretical justification of the mass
terror policy under the pretext that class war must allegedly sharpen as we
march forward toward socialism. Stalin asserted that both history and Lenin
taught him this.
Actually Lenin
taught that the application of revolutionary violence is necessitated by the
resistance of the exploiting classes, and this referred to the era when the
exploiting classes existed and were powerful. As soon as the nation’s political
situation had improved, when in January 1920 the Red Army took Rostov and thus
won a most important victory over [General A. I. ] Denikin, Lenin instructed
[Felix] Dzerzhinsky to stop mass terror and to abolish the death penalty. Lenin
justified this important political move of the Soviet state in the following
manner in his report at the session of the All-Union Central Executive
Committee on February 2, 1920:
“We were forced to
use terror because of the terror practiced by the Entente, when strong world
powers threw their hordes against us, not avoiding any type of conduct. We
would not have lasted two days had we not answered these attempts of officers
and White Guardists in a merciless fashion; this meant the use of terror, but
this was forced upon us by the terrorist methods of the Entente.
“But as soon as we
attained a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after
taking Rostov, we gave up the use of the death penalty and thus proved that we
intend to execute our own program in the manner that we promised. We say that
the application of violence flows out of the decision to smother the
exploiters, the big landowners and the capitalists; as soon as this was
accomplished we gave up the use of all extraordinary methods. We have proved
this in practice.”
Stalin deviated from
these clear and plain precepts of Lenin. Stalin put the Party and the NKVD up
to the use of mass terror when the exploiting classes had been liquidated in
our country and when there were no serious reasons for the use of extraordinary
mass terror.
This terror was
actually directed not at the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes but
against the honest workers of the Party and of the Soviet state; against them
were made lying, slanderous and absurd accusations concerning “two-facedness,”
“espionage,” “sabotage,” preparation of fictitious “plots,” etc.
At the
February-March Central Committee Plenum in 1937 many members actually
questioned the rightness of the established course regarding mass repressions
under the pretext of combating “two-facedness.”
Comrade [Pavel]
Postyshev most ably expressed these doubts. He said:
“I have philosophized
that the severe years of fighting have passed. Party members who have lost
their backbones have broken down or have joined the camp of the enemy; healthy
elements have fought for the Party. These were the years of industrialization
and collectivization. I never thought it possible that after this severe era had
passed Karpov and people like him would find themselves in the camp of the
enemy. Karpov was a worker in the Ukrainian Central Committee whom Postyshev
knew well.) And now, according to the testimony, it appears that Karpov was
recruited in 1934 by the Trotskyites. I personally do not believe that in 1934
an honest Party member who had trod the long road of unrelenting fight against
enemies for the Party and for socialism would now be in the camp of the
enemies. I do not believe it.... I cannot imagine how it would be possible to
travel with the Party during the difficult years and then, in 1934, join the
Trotskyites. It is an odd thing....” (Movement in the hall.)
Using Stalin’s formulation, namely, that the
closer we are to socialism the more enemies we will have, and using the
resolution of the February-March Central Committee Plenum passed on the basis
of Yezhov’s report, the provocateurs who had infiltrated the state-security
organs together with conscienceless careerists began to protect with the Party
name the mass terror against Party cadres, cadres of the Soviet state, and
ordinary Soviet citizens. It should suffice to say that the number of arrests
based on charges of counterrevolutionary crimes had grown ten times between
1936 and 1937.
It is known that
brutal willfulness was practiced against leading Party workers. The [relevant]
Party statute, approved at the 17th Party Congress, was based on Leninist
principles expressed at the 10th Party Congress. It stated that, in order to
apply an extreme method such as exclusion from the Party against a Central
Committee member, against a Central Committee candidate or against a member of
the Party Control Commission, “it is necessary to call a Central Committee
Plenum and to invite to the Plenum all Central Committee candidate members and
all members of the Party Control Commission”; only if two-thirds of the members
of such a general assembly of responsible Party leaders found it necessary,
only then could a Central Committee member or candidate be expelled.
The majority of
those Central Committee’s members and candidates who were elected at the 17th
Congress and arrested in 1937-1938 were expelled from the Party illegally
through brutal abuse of the Party statute, because the question of their
expulsion was never studied at the Central Committee Plenum.
Now, when the cases
of some of these so-called “spies” and “saboteurs” were examined, it was found
that all their cases were fabricated. The confessions of guilt of many of those
arrested and charged with enemy activity were gained with the help of cruel and
inhuman tortures.
At the same time,
Stalin, as we have been informed by members of the Politbiuro of that time, did
not show them the statements of many accused political activists when they
retracted their confessions before the military tribunal and asked for an
objective examination of their cases. There were many such declarations, and
Stalin doubtless knew of them.
The Central
Committee considers it absolutely necessary to inform the Congress of many such
fabricated “cases” against the members of the Party’s Central Committee elected
at the 17th Party Congress.
An example of vile
provocation, of odious falsification and of criminal violation of revolutionary
legality is the case of the former candidate for the Central Committee
Politbiuro, one of the most eminent workers of the Party and of the Soviet
Government, comrade [Robert] Eikhe, who had been a Party member since 1905.
(Commotion in the hall.)
Comrade Eikhe was
arrested on April 29, 1938 on the basis of slanderous materials, without the
sanction of the [State] Prosecutor of the USSR. This was finally received 15
months after the arrest. The investigation of Eikhe’s case was made in a manner
which most brutally violated Soviet legality and was accompanied by willfulness
and falsification. Under torture, Eikhe was forced to sign a protocol of his
confession prepared in advance by the investigative judges. In it, he and
several other eminent Party workers were accused of anti-Soviet activity. On
October 1, 1939 Eikhe sent his declaration to Stalin in which he categorically
denied his guilt and asked for an examination of his case. In the declaration
he wrote: “There is no more bitter misery than to sit in the jail of a
government for which I have always fought.” A second declaration of Eikhe has
been preserved, which he sent to Stalin on October 27, 1939. In it [Eikhe]
cited facts very convincingly and countered the slanderous accusations made
against him, arguing that this provocatory accusation was on one hand the work
of real Trotskyites whose arrests he had sanctioned as First Secretary of the
West Siberian Regional Party Committee and who conspired in order to take
revenge on him, and, on the other hand, the result of the base falsification of
materials by the investigative judges. Eikhe wrote in his declaration:
“... On October 25
of this year I was informed that the investigation in my case has been
concluded and I was given access to the materials of this investigation. Had I
been guilty of only one hundredth of the crimes with which I am charged, I
would not have dared to send you this pre-execution declaration. However I have
not been guilty of even one of the things with which I am charged and my heart
is clean of even the shadow of baseness. I have never in my life told you a
word of falsehood, and now, finding both feet in the grave, I am still not
lying. My whole case is a typical example of provocation, slander and violation
of the elementary basis of revolutionary legality....
“... The confessions
which were made part of my file are not only absurd but contain slander toward
the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and toward
the Council of People’s Commissars. [This is] because correct resolutions of
the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and of the
Council of People’s Commissars which were not made on my initiative and [were
promulgated] without my participation are presented as hostile acts of
counterrevolutionary organizations made at my suggestion.
“I am now alluding
to the most disgraceful part of my life and to my really grave guilt against
the Party and against you. This is my confession of counterrevolutionary
activity.... The case is as follows: Not being able to suffer the tortures to
which I was submitted by [Z.] Ushakov and Nikolayev – especially by the former,
who utilized the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and
have caused me great pain – I have been forced to accuse myself and others.
“The majority of my
confession has been suggested or dictated by Ushakov. The rest is my
reconstruction of NKVD materials from Western Siberia for which I assumed all
responsibility. If some part of the story which Ushakov fabricated and which I
signed did not properly hang together, I was forced to sign another variation.
The same thing was done to [Moisey] Rukhimovich, who was at first designated as
a member of the reserve net and whose name later was removed without telling me
anything about it. The same also was done with the leader of the reserve net,
supposedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I wrote my [own] name in, and
then I was instructed to insert [Valery] Mezhlauk’s. There were other similar
incidents.
“... I am asking and
begging you that you again examine my case, and this not for the purpose of
sparing me but in order to unmask the vile provocation which, like a snake,
wound itself around many persons in a great degree due to my meanness and
criminal slander. I have never betrayed you or the Party. I know that I perish
because of vile and mean work of enemies of the Party and of the people, who
have fabricated the provocation against me.”
It would appear that
such an important declaration was worth an examination by the Central
Committee. This, however, was not done. The declaration was transmitted to
Beria while the terrible maltreatment of the Politbiuro candidate, comrade
Eikhe, continued.
On February 2, 1940,
Eikhe was brought before the court. Here he did not confess any guilt and said
as follows:
“In all the
so-called confessions of mine there is not one letter written by me with the
exception of my signatures under the protocols, which were forced from me. I
have made my confession under pressure from the investigative judge, who from
the time of my arrest tormented me. After that I began to write all this
nonsense.... The most important thing for me is to tell the court, the Party
and Stalin that I am not guilty. I have never been guilty of any conspiracy. I
will die believing in the truth of Party policy as I have believed in it during
my whole life.”
On February 4, Eikhe
was shot. (Indignation
in the hall.)
It has been definitely established now that
Eikhe’s case was fabricated. He has been rehabilitated posthumously.
Comrade [Yan]
Rudzutak, a candidate-member of the Politbiuro, a member of the Party since
1905 who spent 10 years in a Tsarist hard-labor camp, completely retracted in
court the confession forced from him. The protocol of the session of the
Collegium of the Supreme Military Court contains the following statement by
Rudzutak:
“... The only plea
which [the defendant] places before the court is that the Central Committee of
the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) be informed that there is in the
NKVD an as yet not liquidated center which is craftily manufacturing cases,
which forces innocent persons to confess. There is no opportunity to prove one’s
non-participation in crimes to which the confessions of various persons
testify. The investigative methods are such that they force people to lie and
to slander entirely innocent persons in addition to those who already stand
accused. [The defendant] asks the Court that he be allowed to inform the
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) about all this
in writing. He assures the Court that he personally had never any evil designs
in regard to the policy of our Party because he has always agreed with Party
policy concerning all spheres of economic and cultural activity.”
This declaration of
Rudzutak was ignored, despite the fact that Rudzutak was in his time the head
of the Central Control Commission– which had been called into being, in
accordance with Lenin’s conception, for the purpose of fighting for Party
unity. In this manner fell the head of this highly authoritative Party organ, a
victim of brutal willfulness. He was not even called before the Politbiuro
because Stalin did not want to talk to him. Sentence was pronounced on him in
20 minutes and he was shot. (Indignation in the hall.)
After careful examination of the case in 1955,
it was established that the accusation against Rudzutak was false and that it
was based on slanderous materials. Rudzutak has been rehabilitated
posthumously.
The way in which the
former NKVD workers manufactured various fictitious “anti-Soviet centers” and
“blocs” with the help of provocatory methods is seen from the confession of
comrade Rozenblum, a Party member since 1906, who was arrested in 1937 by the
Leningrad NKVD.
During the
examination in 1955 of the Komarov case, Rozenblum revealed the following fact:
When Rozenblum was arrested in 1937, he was subjected to terrible torture during
which he was ordered to confess false information concerning himself and other
persons. He was then brought to the office of [Leonid] Zakovsky, who offered
him freedom on condition that he make before the court a false confession
fabricated in 1937 by the NKVD concerning “sabotage, espionage and diversion in
a terroristic center in Leningrad.” (Movement in the hall.) With unbelievable
cynicism, Zakovsky told about the vile “mechanism” for the crafty creation of
fabricated “anti-Soviet plots.”
“In order to
illustrate it to me,” stated Rozenblum, “Zakovsky gave me several possible
variants of the organization of this center and of its branches. After he
detailed the organization to me, Zakovsky told me that the NKVD would prepare
the case of this center, remarking that the trial would be public. Before the
court were to be brought 4 or 5 members of this center: [Mikhail] Chudov,
[Fyodor] Ugarov, [Pyotr] Smorodin, [Boris] Pozern, Chudov’s wife [Liudmilla]
Shaposhnikova and others together with 2 or 3 members from the branches of this
center....
“... The case of the
Leningrad center has to be built solidly, and for this reason witnesses are
needed. Social origin (of course, in the past) and the Party standing of the
witness will play more than a small role. “’You, yourself,’ said Zakovsky,
‘will not need to invent anything. The NKVD will prepare for you a ready
outline for every branch of the center. You will have to study it carefully,
and remember well all questions the Court might ask and their answers. This
case will be ready in four or five months, perhaps in half a year. During all
this time you will be preparing yourself so that you will not compromise the
investigation and yourself. Your future will depend on how the trial goes and
on its results. If you begin to lie and to testify falsely, blame yourself. If
you manage to endure it, you will save your head and we will feed and clothe
you at the Government’s cost until your death.’”
This is the kind of
vile thing practiced then. (Movement in the hall.)
Even more widely was the falsification of
cases practiced in the provinces. The NKVD headquarters of the Sverdlov
Province “discovered” a so-called “Ural uprising staff” – an organ of the bloc
of rightists, Trotskyites, Socialist Revolutionaries, and church leaders –
whose chief supposedly was the Secretary of the Sverdlov Provincial Party
Committee and member of the Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks), [Ivan] Kabakov, who had been a Party member since 1914.
Investigative materials of that time show that in almost all regions, provinces
and republics there supposedly existed “rightist Trotskyite, espionage-terror
and diversionary-sabotage organizations and centers” and that the heads of such
organizations as a rule – for no known reason – were First Secretaries of
provincial or republican Communist Party committees or Central Committees.
Many thousands of
honest and innocent Communists have died as a result of this monstrous
falsification of such “cases,” as a result of the fact that all kinds of
slanderous “confessions” were accepted, and as a result of the practice of
forcing accusations against oneself and others. In the same manner were
fabricated the “cases” against eminent Party and state workers – [Stanislav]
Kosior, [Vlas] Chubar, [Pavel] Postyshev, [Alexander] Kosarev, and others.
In those years
repressions on a mass scale were applied which were based on nothing tangible
and which resulted in heavy cadre losses to the Party.
The vicious practice
was condoned of having the NKVD prepare lists of persons whose cases were under
the jurisdiction of the Military Collegium and whose sentences were prepared in
advance. Yezhov would send these [execution] lists to Stalin personally for his
approval of the proposed punishment. In 1937-1938, 383 such lists containing
the names of many thousands of Party, Soviet, Komsomol, Army, and economic
workers were sent to Stalin. He approved these lists.
A large part of
these cases are being reviewed now. A great many are being voided because they
were baseless and falsified. Suffice it to say that from 1954 to the present
time the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court has rehabilitated 7,679
persons, many of whom have been rehabilitated posthumously.
Mass arrests of
Party, Soviet, economic and military workers caused tremendous harm to our
country and to the cause of socialist advancement.
Mass repressions had
a negative influence on the moral-political condition of the Party, created a
situation of uncertainty, contributed to the spreading of unhealthy suspicion,
and sowed distrust among Communists. All sorts of slanderers and careerists
were active.
Resolutions of the
January, 1938 Central Committee Plenum brought some measure of improvement to
Party organizations. However, widespread repression also existed in 1938.
Only because our
Party has at its disposal such great moral-political strength was it possible
for it to survive the difficult events in 1937-1938 and to educate new cadres.
There is, however, no doubt that our march forward toward socialism and toward
the preparation of the country’s defense would have been much more successful
were it not for the tremendous loss in the cadres suffered as a result of the
baseless and false mass repressions in 1937-1938.
We are accusing
Yezhov justly for the degenerate practices of 1937. But we have to answer these
questions: Could Yezhov have arrested Kosior, for instance, without Stalin’s
knowledge? Was there an exchange of opinions or a Politbiuro decision concerning
this?
No, there was not,
as there was none regarding other cases of this type. Could Yezhov have decided
such important matters as the fate of such eminent Party figures?
No, it would be a
display of naiveté to consider this the work of Yezhov alone. It is clear that
these matters were decided by Stalin, and that without his orders and his
sanction Yezhov could not have done this.
We have examined
these cases and have rehabilitated Kosior, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Kosarev and
others. For what causes were they arrested and sentenced? Our review of
evidence shows that there was no reason for this. They, like many others, were
arrested without prosecutorial knowledge.
In such a situation,
there is no need for any sanction, for what sort of a sanction could there be
when Stalin decided everything? He was the chief prosecutor in these cases.
Stalin not only agreed to arrest orders but issued them on his own initiative.
We must say this so that the delegates to the Congress can clearly undertake
and themselves assess this and draw the proper conclusions.
Facts prove that
many abuses were made on Stalin’s orders without reckoning with any norms of
Party and Soviet legality. Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly
suspicious. We know this from our work with him. He could look at a man and
say: “Why are your eyes so shifty today?” or “Why are you turning so much today
and avoiding to look me directly in the eyes?” The sickly suspicion created in
him a general distrust even toward eminent Party workers whom he had known for
years. Everywhere and in everything he saw “enemies,” “two-facers” and “spies.”
Possessing unlimited power, he indulged in great willfulness and stifled people
morally as well as physically. A situation was created where one could not express
one’s own volition.
When Stalin said
that one or another should be arrested, it was necessary to accept on faith
that he was an “enemy of the people.” Meanwhile, Beria’s gang, which ran the
organs of state security, outdid itself in proving the guilt of the arrested
and the truth of materials which it falsified. And what proofs were offered?
The confessions of the arrested, and the investigative judges accepted these
“confessions.” And how is it possible that a person confesses to crimes which
he has not committed? Only in one way –because of the application of physical
methods of pressuring him, tortures, bringing him to a state of
unconsciousness, deprivation of his judgment, taking away of his human dignity.
In this manner were “confessions” acquired.
The wave of mass
arrests began to recede in 1939. When the leaders of territorial Party
organizations began to accuse NKVD workers of using methods of physical
pressure on the arrested, Stalin dispatched a coded telegram on January 20,
1939 to the committee secretaries of provinces and regions, to the central
committees of republican Communist parties, to the [republican] People’s
Commissars of Internal Affairs and to the heads of NKVD organizations. This
telegram stated:
“The Central
Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) explains that the
application of methods of physical pressure in NKVD practice is permissible
from 1937 on in accordance with permission of the Central Committee of the
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ... It is known that all bourgeois
intelligence services use methods of physical influence against representatives
of the socialist proletariat and that they use them in their most scandalous
forms.
“The question arises
as to why the socialist intelligence service should be more humanitarian
against the mad agents of the bourgeoisie, against the deadly enemies of the
working class and of kolkhoz workers. The Central Committee of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers that physical pressure should still be
used obligatorily, as an exception applicable to known and obstinate enemies of
the people, as a method both justifiable and appropriate.”
Thus, Stalin had
sanctioned in the name of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist
Party (Bolsheviks) the most brutal violation of socialist legality, torture and
oppression, which led as we have seen to the slandering and to the
self-accusation of innocent people.
Not long ago – only
several days before the present Congress – we called to the Central Committee
Presidium session and interrogated the investigative judge Rodos, who in his
time investigated and interrogated Kosior, Chubar and Kosarev. He is a vile
person, with the brain of a bird, and completely degenerate morally. It was
this man who was deciding the fate of prominent Party workers. He also was
making judgments concerning the politics in these matters, because, having
established their “crime,” he thereby provided materials from which important
political implications could be drawn.
The question arises
whether a man with such an intellect could–by himelf–have conducted his
investigations in a manner proving the guilt of people such as Kosior and
others. No, he could not have done it without proper directives. At the Central
Committee Presidium session he told us: “I was told that Kosior and Chubar were
people’s enemies and for this reason I, as an investigative judge, had to make
them confess that they were enemies.” (Indignation in the hall.)
He would do this only through long tortures,
which he did, receiving detailed instructions from Beria. We must say that at
the Central Committee Presidium session he cynically declared: “I thought that
I was executing the orders of the Party.” In this manner, Stalin’s orders
concerning the use of methods of physical pressure against the arrested were
carried out in practice.
These and many other
facts show that all norms of correct Party solution of problems were
[in]validated and that everything was dependent upon the willfulness of one
man.
The power
accumulated in the hands of one person, Stalin, led to serious consequences
during the Great Patriotic War.
When we look at many
of our novels, films and historical-scientific studies, the role of Stalin in
the Patriotic War appears to be entirely improbable. Stalin had foreseen
everything. The Soviet Army, on the basis of a strategic plan prepared by
Stalin long before, used the tactics of so-called “active defense,” i.e.,
tactics which, as we know, allowed the Germans to come up to Moscow and
Stalingrad. Using such tactics, the Soviet Army, supposedly thanks only to
Stalin’s genius, turned to the offensive and subdued the enemy. The epic
victory gained through the armed might of the land of the Soviets, through our
heroic people, is ascribed in this type of novel, film and “scientific study”
as being completely due to the strategic genius of Stalin.
We have to analyze
this matter carefully because it has a tremendous significance not only from
the historical, but especially from the political, educational and practical
points of view. What are the facts of this matter?
Before the war, our
press and all our political-educational work was characterized by its bragging
tone: When an enemy violates the holy Soviet soil, then for every blow of the
enemy we will answer with three, and we will battle the enemy on his soil and
we will win without much harm to ourselves. But these positive statements were
not based in all areas on concrete facts, which would actually guarantee the
immunity of our borders.
During the war and
after the war, Stalin advanced the thesis that the tragedy our nation
experienced in the first part of the war was the result of an “unexpected”
attack by the Germans against the Soviet Union. But, comrades, this is
completely untrue. As soon as Hitler came to power in Germany he assigned to
himself the task of liquidating Communism. The fascists were saying this
openly. They did not hide their plans.
In order to attain
this aggressive end, all sorts of pacts and blocs were created, such as the
famous Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis. Many facts from the prewar period clearly showed
that Hitler was going all out to begin a war against the Soviet state, and that
he had concentrated large armies, together with armored units, near the Soviet
borders.
Documents which have
now been published show that [as early as] April 3, 1941 Churchill, through his
ambassador to the USSR, [Sir Stafford] Cripps, personally warned Stalin that
the Germans had begun regrouping their armed units with the intent of attacking
the Soviet Union.
It is self-evident
that Churchill did not do this at all because of his friendly feeling toward
the Soviet nation. He had in this his own imperialistic goals – to bring
Germany and the USSR into a bloody war and thereby to strengthen the position
of the British Empire.
All the same,
Churchill affirmed in his writings that he sought to “warn Stalin and call his
attention to the danger which threatened him.” Churchill stressed this
repeatedly in his dispatches of April 18 and on the following days. However, Stalin
took no heed of these warnings. What is more, Stalin ordered that no credence
be given to information of this sort, so as not to provoke the initiation of
military operations.
We must assert that
information of this sort concerning the threat of German armed invasion of
Soviet territory was coming in also from our own military and diplomatic
sources. However, because the leadership was conditioned against such
information, such data was dispatched with fear and assessed with reservation.
Thus, for instance, information sent from Berlin on May 6, 1941 by the Soviet
military (sic) attaché, Captain (sic) Vorontsov, stated:
“Soviet citizen
Bozer ... communicated to the Deputy naval attaché that, according to a
statement of a certain German officer from Hitler’s headquarters, Germany is
preparing to invade the USSR on May 14 through Finland, the Baltic countries
and Latvia. At the same time Moscow and Leningrad will be heavily raided and
paratroopers landed in border cities....”
In his report of May
22, 1941, the Deputy Military Attaché in Berlin, Khlopov, communicated that
“...the attack of
the German Army is reportedly scheduled for June 15, but it is possible that it
may begin in the first days of June...”
A cable from our
London Embassy dated June 18, 1941 stated:
“As of now Cripps is
deeply convinced of the inevitability of armed conflict between Germany and the
USSR, which will begin not later than the middle of June. According to Cripps,
the Germans have presently concentrated 147 divisions (including air force and
service units) along the Soviet borders....”
Despite these
particularly grave warnings, the necessary steps were not taken to prepare the
country properly for defense and to prevent it from being caught unawares.
Did we have time and
the capabilities for such preparations? Yes, we had the time and the
capability. Our industry was already so developed that it was capable of
supplying fully the Soviet Army with everything that it needed. This is proven
by the fact that, although during the war we lost almost half of our industry
and important industrial and food-production areas as the result of enemy
occupation of the Ukraine, Northern Caucasus and other western parts of the country,
the Soviet nation was still able to organize the production of military
equipment in the eastern parts of the country, to install there equipment taken
from the western industrial areas, and to supply our armed forces with
everything necessary to destroy the enemy.
Had our industry
been mobilized properly and in time to supply the Army with the necessary
materiel, our wartime losses would have been decidedly smaller. However such
mobilization had not been started in time. And already in the first days of the
war it became evident that our Army was badly armed. We did not have enough
artillery, tanks and planes to throw the enemy back.
Soviet science and
technology produced excellent models of tanks and artillery pieces before the
war. But mass production of all this was not organized. As a matter of fact, we
started to modernize our military equipment only on the eve of the war. As a
result, when the enemy invaded Soviet territory we did not have sufficient
quantities either of old machinery which was no longer used for armament
production or of new machinery which we had planned to introduce into armament
production.
The situation with
anti-aircraft artillery was especially bad. We did not organize the production
of anti-tank ammunition. Many fortified regions proved to be indefensible as
soon as they were attacked, because their old arms had been withdrawn and new
ones were not yet available there.
This pertained,
alas, not only to tanks, artillery and planes. At the outbreak of the war we did
not even have sufficient numbers of rifles to arm the mobilized manpower. I
recall that in those days I telephoned from Kiev to comrade [Georgy] Malenkov
and told him,
“People have
volunteered for the new Army [units] and are demanding weapons. You must send
us arms.”
Malenkov answered
me,
“We cannot send you
arms. We are sending all our rifles to Leningrad and you have to arm
yourselves.” (Movement
in the hall.)
Such was the armament situation.
In this connection
we cannot forget, for instance, the following fact: Shortly before the invasion
of the Soviet Union by Hitler’s army, [Colonel-General M. P.] Kirponos, who was
chief of the Kiev Special Military District (he was later killed at the front),
wrote to Stalin that German armies were at the Bug River, were preparing for an
attack and in the very near future would probably start their offensive. In
this connection, Kirponos proposed that a strong defense be organized, that
300,000 people be evacuated from the border areas and that several strong
points be organized there: anti-tank ditches, trenches for the soldiers, etc.
Moscow answered this
proposition with the assertions that this would be a provocation, that no
preparatory defensive work should be undertaken at the borders, and that the
Germans were not to be given any pretext for the initiation of military action
against us. Thus our borders were insufficiently prepared to repel the enemy.
When the fascist
armies had actually invaded Soviet territory and military operations began, Moscow
issued an order that German fire was not to be returned. Why? It was because
Stalin, despite the self-evident facts, thought that the war had not yet
started, that this was only a provocative action on the part of several
undisciplined sections of the German Army, and that our reaction might serve as
a reason for the Germans to begin the war.
The following fact
is also known: On the eve of the invasion of Soviet territory by Hitler’s army,
a certain German citizen crossed our border and stated that the German armies
had received orders to start [their] offensive against the Soviet Union on the
night of June 22 at 3 o’clock. Stalin was informed about this immediately, but
even this warning was ignored.
As you see,
everything was ignored: warnings of certain Army commanders, declarations of
deserters from the enemy army, and even the open hostility of the enemy. Is
this an example of the alertness of the chief of the Party and of the state at
this particularly significant historical moment?
And what were the
results of this carefree attitude, this disregard of clear facts? The result
was that already in the first hours and days the enemy had destroyed in our
border regions a large part of our Air Force, our artillery and other military
equipment. [Stalin] annihilated large numbers of our military cadres and disorganized
our military leadership. Consequently we could not prevent the enemy from
marching deep into the country.
Very grievous
consequences, especially with regard to the beginning of the war, followed
Stalin’s annihilation of many military commanders and political workers during
1937-1941 because of his suspiciousness and through slanderous accusations.
During these years repressions were instituted against certain parts of our
military cadres beginning literally at the company- and battalion-commander
levels and extending to higher military centers. During this time, the cadre of
leaders who had gained military experience in Spain and in the Far East was
almost completely liquidated.
The policy of
large-scale repression against military cadres led also to undermined military
discipline, because for several years officers of all ranks and even soldiers
in Party and Komsomol cells were taught to “unmask” their superiors as hidden
enemies.
(Movement in the hall.)
It is natural that
this caused a negative influence on the state of military discipline in the
initial stage of the war.
And, as you know, we
had before the war excellent military cadres which were unquestionably loyal to
the Party and to the Fatherland. Suffice it to say that those of them who
managed to survive, despite severe tortures to which they were subjected in the
prisons, have from the first war days shown themselves real patriots and
heroically fought for the glory of the Fatherland. I have here in mind such
[generals] as: [Konstantin] Rokossovsky (who, as you know, had been jailed);
[Alexander] Gorbatov; [Kiril] Meretskov (who is a delegate at the present
Congress); [K. P.] Podlas (he was an excellent commander who perished at the
front); and many, many others. However, many such commanders perished in the
camps and the jails and the Army saw them no more.
All this brought
about a situation at the beginning of the war that was a great threat to our
Fatherland.
It would be wrong to
forget that, after [our] severe initial disaster[s] and defeat[s] at the front,
Stalin thought that it was the end. In one of his [declarations] in those days
he said: “Lenin left us a great legacy and we’ve lost it forever.”
After this Stalin
for a long time actually did not direct military operations and ceased to do
anything whatsoever. He returned to active leadership only when a Politbiuro
delegation visited him and told him that steps needed to be taken immediately
so as to improve the situation at the front.
Therefore, the
threatening danger which hung over our Fatherland in the initial period of the
war was largely due to Stalin’s very own faulty methods of directing the nation
and the Party.
However, we speak
not only about the moment when the war began, which led to our Army’s serious
disorganization and brought us severe losses. Even after the war began, the
nervousness and hysteria which Stalin demonstrated while interfering with
actual military operations caused our Army serious damage.
Stalin was very far
from understanding the real situation that was developing at the front. This
was natural because, during the whole Patriotic War, he never visited any
section of the front or any liberated city except for one short ride on the
Mozhaisk highway during a stabilized situation at the front. To this incident
were dedicated many literary works full of fantasies of all sorts and so many
paintings. Simultaneously, Stalin was interfering with operations and issuing
orders which did not take into consideration the real situation at a given
section of the front and which could not help but result in huge personnel
losses.
I will allow myself
in this connection to bring out one characteristic fact which illustrates how
Stalin directed operations at the fronts. Present at this Congress is Marshal
[Ivan] Bagramyan, who was once the head of operations in the Southwestern Front
Headquarters and who can corroborate what I will tell you.
When an
exceptionally serious situation for our Army developed in the Kharkov region in
1942, we correctly decided to drop an operation whose objective was to encircle
[the city]. The real situation at that time would have threatened our Army with
fatal consequences if this operation were continued.
We communicated this
to Stalin, stating that the situation demanded changes in [our] operational
plans so that the enemy would be prevented from liquidating a sizable
concentration of our Army.
Contrary to common
sense, Stalin rejected our suggestion. He issued the order to continue the
encirclement of Kharkov, despite the fact that at this time many [of our own]
Army concentrations actually were threatened with encirclement and liquidation.
I telephoned to
[Marshal Alexander] Vasilevsky and begged him: “Alexander Mikhailovich, take a
map” – Vasilevsky is present here – “and show comrade Stalin the situation that
has developed.” We should note that Stalin planned operations on a globe. (Animation in the hall.) Yes, comrades, he used to take a globe
and trace the front line on it. I said to comrade Vasilevsky:
“Show him the
situation on a map. In the present situation we cannot continue the operation
which was planned. The old decision must be changed for the good of the cause.”
Vasilevsky replied,
saying that Stalin had already studied this problem. He said that he,
Vasilevsky, would not see Stalin further concerning this matter, because the
latter didn’t want to hear any arguments on the subject of this operation. After
my talk with Vasilevsky, I telephoned to Stalin at his dacha. But Stalin
did not answer the phone and Malenkov was at the receiver. I told comrade
Malenkov that I was calling from the front and that I wanted to speak
personally to Stalin. Stalin informed me through Malenkov that I should speak
with Malenkov. I stated for the second time that I wished to inform Stalin
personally about the grave situation which had arisen for us at the front. But
Stalin did not consider it convenient to pick up the phone and again stated
that I should speak to him through Malenkov, although he was only a few steps
from the telephone.
After “listening” in this manner to our plea,
Stalin said: “Let everything remain as it is!”
And what was the
result of this? The worst we had expected. The Germans surrounded our Army
concentrations and as a result [the Kharkov counterattack] lost hundreds of
thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin’s military “genius.” This is what it
cost us. (Movement
in the hall.)
On one occasion after the war, during a
meeting [between] Stalin [and] members of the Politbiuro, Anastas Ivanovich
Mikoyan mentioned that Khrushchev must have been right when he telephoned
concerning the Kharkov operation and that it was unfortunate that his
suggestion had not been accepted.
You should have seen
Stalin’s fury! How could it be admitted that he, Stalin, had not been right! He
is after all a “genius,” and a genius cannot help but be right! Everyone can
err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was always right. He
never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake, large or small, despite
the fact that he made more than a few in matters of theory and in his practical
activity. After the Party Congress we shall probably have to re-evaluate many
[of our] wartime military operations and present them in their true light.
The tactics on which
Stalin insisted – without knowing the basics of conducting battle operations –
cost much blood until we succeeded in stopping the opponent and going over to
the offensive.
The military knows
that as late as the end of 1941, instead of great operational maneuvers
flanking [our] opponent and penetrating behind his back, Stalin was demanding
incessant frontal [counter-]attacks and the [re-]capture of one village after
another.
Because of this, we
paid with great losses – until our generals, upon whose shoulders the whole
weight of conducting the war rested, succeeded in altering the situation and
shifting to flexible-maneuver operations. [This] immediately brought serious
changes at the front [that were] favorable to us.
All the more
shameful was the fact that after our great victory over the enemy, which cost
us so dearly, Stalin began to downgrade many of the commanders who had
contributed so much to it. [This was] because Stalin ruled out any chance that
services rendered at the front might be credited to anyone but himself.
Stalin was very much
interested in assessments of comrade [Grigory] Zhukov as a military leader. He
asked me often for my opinion of Zhukov. I told him then, “I have known Zhukov
for a long time. He is a good general and a good military leader.”
After the war Stalin
began to tell all kinds of nonsense about Zhukov. Among it [was] the following:
“You praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. They say that before each
operation at the front Zhukov used to behave as follows: He used to take a
handful of earth, smell it and say, ‘We can begin the attack,’ or its opposite,
‘The planned operation cannot be carried out.’” I stated at the time, “Comrade
Stalin, I do not know who invented this, but it is not true.”
It is possible that
Stalin himself invented these things for the purpose of minimizing the role and
military talents of Marshal Zhukov.
In this connection,
Stalin very energetically popularized himself as a great leader. In various
ways he tried to inculcate the notion that the victories gained by the Soviet
nation during the Great Patriotic War were all due to the courage, daring, and
genius of Stalin and of no one else. Just like [a] Kuzma Kryuchkov, he put one
dress on seven people at the same time. (Animation in the hall.)
In the same vein, let us take for instance our
historical and military films and some [of our] literary creations. They make
us feel sick. Their true objective is propagating the theme of praising Stalin
as a military genius. Let us recall the film, The Fall of Berlin. Here
only Stalin acts. He issues orders in a hall in which there are many empty
Chairs. Only only one man approaches him to report something to him – it is
[Alexander] Poskrebyshev, his loyal shield-bearer.
(Laughter in the hall.)
And where is the
military command? Where is the Politburo? Where is the Government? What are
they doing, and with what are they engaged? There is nothing about them in the
film. Stalin acts for everybody, he does not reckon with anyone. He asks no one
for advice. Everything is shown to the people in this false light. Why? To
surround Stalin with glory– contrary to the facts and contrary to historical truth.
The question arises:
Where is the military, on whose shoulders rested the burden of the war? It is
not in the film. With Stalin’s inclusion, there was no room left for it.
Not Stalin, but the
Party as a whole, the Soviet Government, our heroic Army, its talented leaders
and brave soldiers, the whole Soviet nation – these are the ones who assured
victory in the Great Patriotic War.
(Tempestuous and prolonged
applause.)
Central Committee
members, Ministers, our economic leaders, the leaders of Soviet culture,
directors of territorial-party and Soviet organizations, engineers, and
technicians – every one of them in his own place of work generously gave of his
strength and knowledge toward ensuring victory over the enemy.
Exceptional heroism was
shown by our hard core – surrounded by glory are our whole working class, our
kolkhoz peasantry, the Soviet intelligentsia, who under the leadership of Party
organizations overcame untold hardships and bearing the hardships of war, and
devoted all their strength to the cause of the Fatherland’s defense.
Our Soviet women
accomplished great and brave deeds during the war. They bore on their backs the
heavy load of production work in the factories, on the kolkhozes, and in
various economic and cultural sectors. Many women participated directly in the
Great Patriotic War at the front. Our brave youth contributed immeasurably,
both at the front and at home, to the defense of the Soviet Fatherland and to
the annihilation of the enemy.
The services of Soviet
soldiers, of our commanders and political workers of all ranks are immortal.
After the loss of a considerable part of the Army in the initial war months,
they did not lose their heads and were able to reorganize during the course of
combat. Over the course of the war they created and toughened a strong, heroic
Army. They not only withstood [our] strong and cunning enemy’s pressure but
smashed him.
The magnificent,
heroic deeds of hundreds of millions of people of the East and of the West
during the fight against the threat of fascist subjugation which loomed before
us will live for centuries, [indeed] for millennia in the memory of thankful
humanity.
(Thunderous applause.)
The main roles and
the main credit for the victorious ending of the war belong to our Communist
Party, to the armed forces of the Soviet Union, and to the tens of millions of
Soviet people uplifted by the Party.
(Thunderous and prolonged
applause.)
Comrades, let us
reach for some other facts. The Soviet Union justly is considered a model
multinational state because we have assured in practice the equality and
friendship of all [of the] peoples living in our great Fatherland.
All the more
monstrous are those acts whose initiator was Stalin and which were rude
violations of the basic Leninist principles [behind our] Soviet state’s
nationalities policies. We refer to the mass deportations of entire nations
from their places of origin, together with all Communists and Komsomols without
any exception. This deportation was not dictated by any military
considerations.
Thus, at the end of
1943, when there already had been a permanent change of fortune at the front in
favor of the Soviet Union, a decision concerning the deportation of all the
Karachai from the lands on which they lived was taken and executed.
In the same period,
at the end of December, 1943, the same lot befell the [Kalmyks] of the Kalmyk
Autonomous Republic. In March, 1944, all the Chechens and Ingushi were deported
and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April, 1944, all
Balkars were deported from the territory of the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous
Republic to faraway places and their Republic itself was renamed the Autonomous
Kabardian Republic.
Ukrainians avoided meeting
this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to
which to deport them. Otherwise, [Stalin] would have deported them also.
(Laughter and animation in
the hall.)
No Marxist-Leninist,
no man of common sense can grasp how it is possible to make whole nations
responsible for inimical activity, including women, children, old people,
Communists and Komsomols, to use mass repression against them, and to expose
them to misery and suffering for the hostile acts of individual persons or
groups of persons.
After the conclusion
of the Patriotic War, the Soviet nation proudly stressed the magnificent
victories gained through [our] great sacrifices and tremendous efforts. The
country experienced a period of political enthusiasm. The Party came out of the
war even more united. Its cadres were tempered and hardened by the fire of the
war. Under such conditions nobody could have even thought of the possibility of
some plot in the Party.
And it was precisely
at this time that the so-called “Leningrad affair” was born. As we have now
proven, this case was fabricated. Those who innocently lost their lives
included: comrades [Nikolay] Voznesensky, [Aleksey] Kuznetsov, [Mikhail]
Rodionov, [Pyotr] Popkov, and others.
As is known,
Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were talented and eminent leaders. Once they stood
very close to Stalin. It is sufficient to mention that Stalin made Voznesensky
First Deputy to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Kuznetsov was
elected Secretary of the Central Committee. The very fact that Stalin entrusted
Kuznetsov with the supervision of the state-security organs shows the trust
which he enjoyed.
How did it happen
that these persons were branded as enemies of the people and liquidated?
Facts prove that the
“Leningrad affair” is also the result of willfulness which Stalin exercised
against Party cadres. Had a normal situation existed in the Party’s Central
Committee and in the Central Committee Politbiuro, affairs of this nature would
have been examined there in accordance with Party practice, and all pertinent
facts assessed; as a result, such an affair as well as others would not have
happened.
We must state that,
after the war, the situation became even more complicated. Stalin became even
more capricious, irritable and brutal. In particular, his suspicion grew. His
persecution mania reached unbelievable dimensions. Many workers became enemies
before his very eyes. After the war, Stalin separated himself from the
collective even more. Everything was decided by him alone without any
consideration for anyone or anything.
This unbelievable
suspicion was cleverly taken advantage of by the abject provocateur and vile
enemy, Beria, who murdered thousands of Communists and loyal Soviet people. The
elevation of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov alarmed Beria. As we have now proven, it
had been precisely Beria who had “suggested” to Stalin the fabrication by him
and by his confidants of materials in the form of declarations and anonymous
letters, and in the form of various rumors and talks.
The Party’s Central
Committee has examined this so-called “Leningrad affair”; persons who
innocently suffered are now rehabilitated and honor has been restored to the
glorious Leningrad Party organization. [V. S.] Abakumov and others who had fabricated
this affair were brought before a court; their trial took place in Leningrad
and they received what they deserved.
The question arises:
Why is it that we see the truth of this affair only now, and why did we not do
something earlier, during Stalin’s life, in order to prevent the loss of
innocent lives? It was because Stalin personally supervised the “Leningrad
affair,” and the majority of the Politbiuro members did not, at that time, know
all of the circumstances in these matters and could not therefore intervene.
When Stalin received
certain material from Beria and Abakumov, without examining these slanderous
materials he ordered an investigation of the “affair” of Voznesensky and
Kuznetsov. With this, their fate was sealed.
Similarly instructive
is the case of the Mingrelian nationalist organization which supposedly existed
in Georgia. As is known, resolutions by the Central Committee, Communist Party
of the Soviet Union, were made concerning this case in November 1951 and in
March 1952. These resolutions were made without prior discussion with the
Politbiuro. Stalin had personally dictated them. They made serious accusations
against many loyal Communists. On the basis of falsified documents, it was
proven that there existed in Georgia a supposedly nationalistic organization
whose objective was the liquidation of the Soviet power in that republic with
the help of imperialist powers.
In this connection,
a number of responsible Party and Soviet workers were arrested in Georgia. As
was later proven, this was a slander directed against the Georgian Party
organization.
We know that there
have been at times manifestations of local bourgeois nationalism in Georgia as
in several other republics. The question arises: Could it be possible that, in the
period during which the resolutions referred to above were made, nationalist
tendencies grew so much that there was a danger of Georgia’s leaving the Soviet
Union and joining Turkey?
(Animation in the hall,
laughter).
This is, of course,
nonsense. It is impossible to imagine how such assumptions could enter anyone’s
mind. Everyone knows how Georgia has developed economically and culturally
under Soviet rule. Industrial production in the Georgian Republic is 27 times
greater than it was before the Revolution. Many new industries have arisen in
Georgia which did not exist there before the Revolution: iron smelting, an oil
industry, a machine-construction industry, etc. Illiteracy has long since been
liquidated, which, in pre-Revolutionary Georgia, included 78 per cent of the
population.
Could the Georgians,
comparing the situation in their republic with the hard situation of the
working masses in Turkey, be aspiring to join Turkey? In 1955, Georgia produced
18 times as much steel per person as Turkey. Georgia produces 9 times as much
electrical energy per person as Turkey. According to the available 1950 census,
65 per cent of Turkey’s total population is illiterate, and 80 per cent of its
women. Georgia has 19 institutions of higher learning which have about 39,000
students; this is 8 times more than in Turkey (for each 1,000 inhabitants). The
prosperity of the working people has grown tremendously in Georgia under Soviet
rule.
It is clear that, as
the economy and culture develop, and as the socialist consciousness of the
working masses in Georgia grows, the source from which bourgeois nationalism
draws its strength evaporates.
As it developed,
there was no nationalistic organization in Georgia. Thousands of innocent
people fell victim to willfulness and lawlessness. All of this happened under
the “genius” leadership of Stalin, “the great son of the Georgian nation,” as
Georgians like to refer to him.
(Animation in the hall.)
The willfulness of
Stalin showed itself not only in decisions concerning the internal life of the
country but also in the international relations of the Soviet Union.
The July Plenum of
the Central Committee studied in detail the reasons for the development of
conflict with Yugoslavia. It was a shameful role which Stalin played here. The
“Yugoslav affair” contained no problems which could not have been solved
through Party discussions among comrades. There was no significant basis for
the development of this “affair.” It was completely possible to have prevented
the rupture of relations with that country. This does not mean, however, that
Yugoslav leaders made no mistakes or had no shortcomings. But these mistakes
and shortcomings were magnified in a monstrous manner by Stalin, resulting in
the breakoff of relations with a friendly country.
I recall the first
days when the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began to be
blown up artificially. Once, when I came from Kiev to Moscow, I was invited to
visit Stalin, who, pointing to the copy of a letter recently sent to
[Yugoslavian President Marshal Joseph] Tito, asked me, “Have you read this?”
Not waiting for my
reply, he answered, “I will shake my little finger – and there will be no more
Tito. He will fall.”
We have paid dearly
for this “shaking of the little finger.” This statement reflected Stalin’s
mania for greatness, but he acted just that way: “I will shake my little finger
– and there will be no Kosior”; “I will shake my little finger once more and
Postyshev and Chubar will be no more”; “I will shake my little finger again –
and Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and many others will disappear.”
But this did not
happen to Tito. No matter how much or how little Stalin shook, not only his
little finger but everything else that he could shake, Tito did not fall. Why?
The reason was that, in this instance of disagreement with [our] Yugoslav
comrades, Tito had behind him a state and a people who had had a serious
education in fighting for liberty and independence, a people who gave support
to its leaders.
You see what
Stalin’s mania for greatness led to. He completely lost consciousness of
reality. He demonstrated his suspicion and haughtiness not only in relation to
individuals in the USSR, but in relation to whole parties and nations.
We have carefully examined
the case of Yugoslavia. We have found a proper solution which is approved by
the peoples of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia as well as by the working
masses of all the people’s democracies and by all progressive humanity. The
liquidation of [our] abnormal relationship with Yugoslavia was done in the
interest of the whole camp of socialism, in the interest of strengthening peace
in the whole world.
Let us also recall
the “affair of the doctor-plotters.”
(Animation in the hall.)
Actually there was
no “affair” outside of the declaration of the woman doctor [Lidiya] Timashuk,
who was probably influenced or ordered by someone (after all, she was an
unofficial collaborator of the organs of state security) to write Stalin a
letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly improper
methods of medical treatment.
Such a letter was
sufficient for Stalin to reach an immediate conclusion that there are
doctor-plotters in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group of eminent
Soviet medical specialists. He personally issued advice on the conduct of the
investigation and the method of interrogation of the arrested persons. He said
that academician [V. N. ] Vinogradov should be put in chains, and that another
one [of the alleged plotters] should be beaten. The former Minister of State
Security, comrade [Semyen] Ignatiev, is present at this Congress as a delegate.
Stalin told him curtly, “If you do not obtain confessions from the doctors we
will shorten you by a head.”
(Tumult in the hall.)
Stalin personally
called the investigative judge, gave him instructions, and advised him on which
investigative methods should be used. These methods were simple – beat, beat
and, beat again.
Shortly after the
doctors were arrested, we members of the Politbiuro received protocols with the
doctors’ confessions of guilt. After distributing these protocols, Stalin told
us, “You are blind like young kittens. What will happen without me? The country
will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies.”
The case was
presented so that no one could verify the facts on which the investigation was
based. There was no possibility of trying to verify facts by contacting those
who had made the confessions of guilt.
We felt, however, that
the case of the arrested doctors was questionable. We knew some of these people
personally because they had once treated us. When we examined this “case” after
Stalin’s death, we found it to have been fabricated from beginning to end.
This ignominious
“case” was set up by Stalin. He did not, however, have the time in which to
bring it to an end (as he conceived that end), and for this reason the doctors
are still alive. All of them have been rehabilitated. They are working in the
same places they were working before. They are treating top individuals, not
excluding members of the Government. They have our full confidence; and they
execute their duties honestly, as they did before.
In putting together
various dirty and shameful cases, a very base role was played by a rabid enemy
of our Party, an agent of a foreign intelligence service – Beria, who had
stolen into Stalin’s confidence. How could this provocateur have gained such a
position in the Party and in the state, so as to become the First Deputy Chair
of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union and a Politbiuro member? It has
now been established that this villain climbed up the Government ladder over an
untold number of corpses.
Were there any signs
that Beria was an enemy of the Party? Yes, there were. Already in 1937, at a
Central Committee Plenum, former People’s Commissar of Health [Grigory]
Kaminsky said that Beria worked for the Musavat intelligence service. But the
Plenum had barely concluded when Kaminsky was arrested and then shot. Had
Stalin examined Kaminsky’s statement? No, because Stalin believed in Beria, and
that was enough for him. And when Stalin believed in anyone or anything, then
no one could say anything that was contrary to his opinion. Anyone daring to
express opposition would have met the same fate as Kaminsky.
There were other
signs, also. The declaration which comrade [A. V.] Snegov made to the Party’s
Central Committee isinteresting. (Parenthetically speaking, he was also
rehabilitated not long ago, after 17 years in prison camps.) In this
declaration, Snegov writes:
“In connection with
the proposed rehabilitation of the former Central Committee member, [Lavrenty]
Kartvelishvili-Lavrentiev, I have entrusted to the hands of the representative
of the Committee of State Security a detailed deposition concerning Beria’s
role in the disposition of the Kartvelishvili case and concerning the criminal
motives by which Beria was guided.
“In my opinion, it
is indispensable to recall an important fact pertaining to this case and to
communicate it to the Central Committee, because I did not consider it as
proper to include in the investigation documents.
“On October 30,
1931, at a session of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Kartvelishvili, Secretary of the
Transcaucasian Regional Committee, made a report. All members of the executive
of the Regional Committee were present. Of them I alone am now alive.
“During this
session, J. V. Stalin made a motion at the end of his speech concerning the
organization of the secretariat of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee
composed of the following: First Secretary, Kartvelishvili; Second Secretary,
Beria (it was then, for the first time in the Party’s history, that Beria’s
name was mentioned as a candidate for a Party position). Kartvelishvili
answered that he knew Beria well and for that reason refused categorically to
work together with him. Stalin proposed then that this matter be left open and that
it be solved in the process of the work itself. Two days later a decision was
arrived at that Beria would receive the Party post and that Kartvelishvili
would be deported from the Transcaucasus.
“This fact can be
confirmed by comrades Mikoyan and Kaganovich, who were present at that
session.”
The long, unfriendly
relations between Kartvelishvili and Beria were widely known. They date back to
the time when comrade Sergo [Ordzhonikidze] was active in the Transcaucasus.
Kartvelishvili was the closest assistant of Sergo. The unfriendly relationship
impelled Beria to fabricate a “case” against Kartvelishvili. It is
characteristic that Kartvelishvili was charged with a terroristic act against
Beria in this “case.”
The indictment in
the Beria case contains a discussion of his crimes. Some things should,
however, be recalled, especially since it is possible that not all delegates to
the Congress have read this document. I wish to recall Beria’s bestial
disposition of the cases of [Mikhail] Kedrov, [V.] Golubev, and Golubev’s
adopted mother, Baturina – persons who wished to inform the Central Committee
concerning Beria’s treacherous activity. They were shot without any trial and
the sentence was passed ex post facto, after the execution.
Here is what the old
Communist, comrade Kedrov, wrote to the Central Committee through comrade
[Andrey] Andreyev (comrade Andreyev was then a Central Committee Secretary):
“I am calling to you
for help from a gloomy cell of the Lefortovo prison. Let my cry of horror reach
your ears; do not remain deaf, take me under your protection; please, help
remove the nightmare of interrogations and show that this is all a mistake.
“I suffer
innocently. Please believe me. Time will testify to the truth. I am not an agent
provocateur of the Tsarist Okhrana. I am not a spy, I am not a member of an
anti-Soviet organization of which I am being accused on the basis of
denunciations. I am also not guilty of any other crimes against the Party and
the Government. I am an old Bolshevik, free of any stain; I have honestly
fought for almost 40 years in the ranks of the Party for the good and
prosperity of the nation....
“... Today I, a
62-year-old man, am being threatened by the investigative judges with more
severe, cruel and degrading methods of physical pressure. They (the judges) are
no longer capable of becoming aware of their error and of recognizing that
their handling of my case is illegal and impermissible. They try to justify
their actions by picturing me as a hardened and raving enemy and are demanding
increased repressions. But let the Party know that I am innocent and that there
is nothing which can turn a loyal son of the Party into an enemy, even right up
to his last dying breath.
“But I have no way
out. I cannot divert from myself the hastily approaching new and powerful
blows.
“Everything,
however, has its limits. My torture has reached the extreme. My health is
broken, my strength and my energy are waning, the end is drawing near. To die
in a Soviet prison, branded as a vile traitor to the Fatherland – what can be
more monstrous for an honest man? And how monstrous all this is! Unsurpassed
bitterness and pain grips my heart. No! No! This will not happen; this cannot
be, I cry. Neither the Party, nor the Soviet Government, nor the People’s
Commissar, L. P. Beria, will permit this cruel, ireparable injustice. I am
firmly certain that, given a quiet, objective examination, without any foul
rantings, without any anger and without the fearful tortures, it would be easy
to prove the baselessness of the charges. I believe deeply that truth and
justice will triumph. I believe. I believe.”
The old Bolshevik,
comrade Kedrov, was found innocent by the Military Collegium. But, despite
this, he was shot at Beria’s order. (Indignation in the hall.)
Beria also handled
cruelly the family of comrade Ordzhonikidze. Why? Because Ordzhonikidze had
tried to prevent Beria from realizing his shameful plans. Beria had cleared
from his way all persons who could possibly interfere with him. Ordzhonikidze
was always an opponent of Beria, which he told to Stalin. Instead of examining
this affair and taking appropriate steps, Stalin allowed the liquidation of
Ordzhonikidze’s brother and brought Ordzhonikidze himself to such a state that
he was forced to shoot himself. (Indignation in the hall.)
Beria was unmasked by the Party’s Central
Committee shortly after Stalin’s death. As a result of particularly detailed
legal proceedings, it was established that Beria had committed monstrous crimes
and Beria was shot.
The question arises
why Beria, who had liquidated tens of thousands of Party and Soviet workers,
was not unmasked during Stalin’s life. He was not unmasked earlier because he
had utilized very skillfully Stalin’s weaknesses; feeding him with suspicions,
he assisted Stalin in everything and acted with his support.
Comrades: The cult
of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself,
using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This
is supported by numerous facts. One of the most characteristic examples of
Stalin’s self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the
edition of his Short Biography, which was published in 1948 (sic).
This book is an
expression of the most dissolute flattery, an example of making a man into a
godhead, of transforming him into an infallible sage, “the greatest leader,
sublime strategist of all times and nations.” Finally, no other words could be
found with which to lift Stalin up to the heavens.
We need not give
here examples of the loathesome adulation filling this book. All we need to add
is that they all were approved and edited by Stalin personally. Some of them
were added in his own handwriting to the draft text of the book.
What did Stalin
consider essential to write into this book? Did he want to cool the ardor of
the flatterers who were composing his Short Biography? No! He marked the
very places where he thought that the praise of his services was insufficient.
Here are some examples characterizing Stalin’s activity, added in Stalin’s own
hand:
“In this fight
against the skeptics and capitulators, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites,
Bukharinites and Kamenevites, there was definitely welded together, after
Lenin’s death, that leading core of the Party... that upheld the great banner
of Lenin, rallied the Party behind Lenin’s behests, and brought the Soviet
people onto the broad paths of industrializing the country and collectivizing
the rural economy. The leader of this core and the guiding force of the Party
and the state was comrade Stalin.”
Thus writes Stalin
himself! Then he adds:
“Although he
performed his tasks as leader of the Party and the people with consummate
skill, and enjoyed the unreserved support of the entire Soviet people, Stalin
never allowed his work to be marred by the slightest hint of vanity, conceit or
self-adulation.”
Where and when could
a leader so praise himself? Is this worthy of a leader of the Marxist-Leninist
type? No. Precisely against this did Marx and Engels take such a strong
position. This always was sharply condemned also by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
In the draft text of
[Stalin’s] book appeared the following sentence: “Stalin is the Lenin of
today.” This sentence appeared to Stalin to be too weak. Thus, in his own
handwriting, he changed it to read: “Stalin is the worthy continuer of Lenin’s
work, or, as it is said in our Party, Stalin is the Lenin of today.” You see
how well it is said, not by the nation but by Stalin himself.
It is possible to offer
many such self-praising appraisals written into the draft text of that book in
Stalin’s hand. He showers himself especially generously with praises regarding
his military genius and his talent for strategy. I will cite one more insertion
made by Stalin on the theme: “The advanced Soviet science of war received
further development,” he writes, “at Comrade Stalin’s hands. Comrade Stalin
elaborated the theory of the permanent operating factors that decide the issue
of wars, of active defense and the laws of counteroffensive and offensive, of
the cooperation of all services and arms in modern warfare, of the role of big
tank masses and air forces in modern war, and of the artillery as the most
formidable of the armed services. At various stages of the war, Stalin’s genius
found correct solutions that took into account all the circumstances of the
situation.”
(Movement in the hall.)
Further, Stalin
writes:
“Stalin’s military
mastership was displayed both in defense and on offense. Comrade Stalin’s
genius enabled him to divine the enemy’s plans and defeat them. The battles in
which comrade Stalin directed the Soviet armies are brilliant examples of
operational military skill.”
This is how Stalin
was praised as a strategist. Who did this? Stalin himself, not in his role as a
strategist but in the role of an author-editor, one of the main creators of his
[own] self-adulatory biography. Such, comrades, are the facts. Or should be
said, rather, the shameful facts.
One additional fact
from the same Short Biography of Stalin: As is known, the History of
the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Short Course was written by a
commission of the Party Central Committee.
This book, parenthetically, was also permeated
with the cult of the individual and was written by a designated group of
authors. This fact was reflected in the following formulation on the proof copy
of the Short Biography of Stalin:
“A commission of the
Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), under the direction
of comrade Stalin and with his most active personal participation, has prepared
a History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Short Course.”
But even this phrase
did not satisfy Stalin: The following sentence replaced it in the final version
of the Short Biography: “In 1938, the book History of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Short Course appeared, written by comrade
Stalin and approved by a commission of the Central Committee, All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks).” Can one add anything more? (Animation in the hall.)
As you see, a surprising metamorphosis changed
the work created by a group into a book written by Stalin. It is not necessary
to state how and why this metamorphosis took place.
A pertinent question
comes to our mind: If Stalin is the author of this book, why did he need to
praise the person of Stalin so much and to transform the whole post-October
historical period of our glorious Communist Party solely into an action of “the
Stalin genius”?
Did this book
properly reflect the efforts of the Party in the socialist transformation of
the country, in the construction of socialist society, in the industrialization
and collectivization of the country, and also other steps taken by the Party
which undeviatingly traveled the path outlined by Lenin? This book speaks
principally about Stalin, about his speeches, about his reports. Everything
without the smallest exception is tied to his name.
And when Stalin
himself asserts that he himself wrote the Short Course, this calls at
least for amazement. Can a Marxist-Leninist thus write about himself, praising
his own person to the heavens?
Or let us take the
matter of the Stalin Prizes. (Movement in the hall.)
Not even the Tsars created prizes which they named after
themselves. Stalin recognized as the best a text of the national anthem of the
Soviet Union which contains not a word about the Communist Party; it contains,
however, the following unprecedented praise of Stalin:
“Stalin brought us
up in loyalty to the people. He inspired us to great toil and deeds.”
In these lines of the anthem, the whole
educational, directional and inspirational activity of the great Leninist Party
is ascribed to Stalin. This is, of course, a clear deviation from
Marxism-Leninism, a clear debasing and belittling of the role of the Party. We
should add for your information that the Presidium of the Central Committee has
already passed a resolution concerning the composition of a new text of the
anthem. which will reflect the role of the people and the role of the Party.
(Loud, prolonged applause.)
And was it without
Stalin’s knowledge that many of the largest enterprises and towns were named
after him? Was it without his knowledge that Stalin monuments were erected in
the whole country – these “memorials to the living”? It is a fact that Stalin
himself had signed on July 2, 1951 a resolution of the USSR Council of
Ministers concerning the erection on the Volga-Don Canal of an impressive
monument to Stalin; on September 4 of the same year he issued an order making
33 tons of copper available for the construction of this impressive monument.
Anyone who has
visited the Stalingrad area must have seen the huge statue which is being built
there, and that on a site which hardly any people frequent. Huge sums were
spent to build it at a time when people of this area had lived since the war in
huts. Consider, yourself, was Stalin right when he wrote in his biography that
“...he did not allow in himself... even a shadow of conceit, pride, or
self-adoration”?
At the same time
Stalin gave proofs of his lack of respect for Lenin’s memory. It is not a
coincidence that, despite the decision taken over 30 years ago to build a
Palace of Soviets as a monument to Vladimir Ilyich, this palace was not built,
its construction was always postponed and the project allowed to lapse.
We cannot forget to
recall the Soviet Government resolution of August 14, 1925 concerning “the
founding of Lenin prizes for educational work.” This resolution was published
in the press, but until this day there are no Lenin prizes. This, too, should
be corrected.
(Tumultuous, prolonged
applause.)
During Stalin’s life
– thanks to known methods which I have mentioned, and quoting facts, for
instance. from the Short Biography of Stalin – all events were explained
as if Lenin played only a secondary role, even during the October Socialist
Revolution. In many films and in many literary works the figure of Lenin was
incorrectly presented and inadmissibly depreciated.
Stalin loved to see
the film The Unforgettable Year of 1919, in which he was shown on the
steps of an armored train and where he was practically vanquishing the foe with
his own saber. Let Klimenty Yefremovich [Voroshilov], our dear friend, find the
necessary courage and write the truth about Stalin; after all, he knows how
Stalin had fought. It will be difficult for comrade Voroshilov to undertake
this, but it would be good if he did it. Everyone will approve of it, both the
people and the Party. Even his grandsons will thank him.
(Prolonged applause.)
In speaking about
the events of the October Revolution and about the Civil War, the impression
was created that Stalin always played the main role, as if everywhere and
always Stalin had suggested to Lenin what to do and how to do it. However, this
is slander of Lenin.
(Prolonged applause.)
I will probably not
sin against the truth when I say that 99 per cent of the persons present here
heard and knew very little about Stalin before the year 1924, while Lenin was
known to all. He was known to the whole Party, to the whole nation, from
children all the way up to old men.
(Tumultuous, prolonged
applause.)
All this has to be
thoroughly revised so that history, literature and the fine arts properly
reflect V. I. Lenin’s role and the great deeds of our Communist Party and of
the Soviet people – a creative people.
(Applause.)
Comrades! The cult
of the individual caused the employment of faulty principles in Party work and
in economic activity. It brought about rude violation of internal Party and
Soviet democracy, sterile administration, deviations of all sorts, cover-ups of
shortcomings, and varnishings of reality. Our nation bore forth many flatterers
and specialists in false optimism and deceit.
We should also not
forget that, due to the numerous arrests of Party, Soviet and economic leaders,
many workers began to work uncertainly, showed overcautiousness, feared all
which was new, feared their own shadows, and began to show less initiative in
their work.
Take, for instance,
Party and Soviet resolutions. They were prepared in a routine manner, often
without considering the concrete situation. This went so far that Party
workers, even during the smallest sessions, read [prepared] speeches. All this
produced the danger of formalizing the Party and Soviet work and of bureaucratizing
the whole apparatus.
Stalin’s reluctance
to consider life’s realities, and the fact that he was not aware of the real
state of affairs in the provinces, can be illustrated by his direction of
agriculture.
All those who
interested themselves even a little in the national situation saw the difficult
situation in agriculture, but Stalin never even noted it. Did we tell Stalin
about this? Yes, we told him, but he did not support us. Why? Because Stalin
never traveled anywhere, did not meet city and kolkhoz workers. He did not know
the actual situation in the provinces.
He knew the country
and agriculture only from films. And these films dressed up and beautified the
existing situation in agriculture. Many films pictured kolkhoz life such that [farmhouse]
tables groaned from the weight of turkeys and geese. Evidently, Stalin thought
that it was actually so.
Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin looked at life differently. He always was close to the people. He used to
receive peasant delegates and often spoke at factory gatherings. He used to
visit villages and talk with the peasants.
Stalin separated
himself from the people and never went anywhere. This lasted ten years. The
last time he visited a village was in January, 1928, when he visited Siberia in
connection with grain procurements. How then could he have known the situation
in the provinces?
Once, [Stalin] was
told during a discussion that our situation on the land was a difficult one and
that the situation in cattle breeding and meat production was especially bad.
[From this] there came a commission charged with the preparation of a
resolution called “Measures toward the further development of animal husbandry
in kolkhozes and sovkhozes.” We worked out this project.
Of course, our
proposals at that time did not cover all the possibilities. However we did
chart ways in which animal husbandry on kolkhozes and sovkhozes could be
boosted. We proposed to raise livestock prices so as to create material
incentives for kolkhoz, MTS [machine-tractor station] and sovkhoz workers in
developing breeding. But our project was not accepted, In February 1953 it was
laid aside entirely.
What is more, while
reviewing this project Stalin proposed that the taxes paid by kolkhozes and by
kolkhoz workers should be raised by 40 billion rubles. According to him, the
peasants were well off and a kolkhoz worker would need to sell only one more
chicken to pay his tax in full.
Think about what
this implied. Forty billion rubles is a sum which [these workers] did not
realize for all the products which they sold to the State. In 1952, for
instance, kolkhozes and kolkhoz workers received 26,280 million rubles for all
products delivered and sold to the State.
Did Stalin’s
position, then, rest on data of any sort whatever? Of course not. In such cases
facts and figures did not interest him. If Stalin said anything, it meant it
was so – after all, he was a “genius,” and a genius does not need to count, he
only needs to look and can immediately tell how it should be. When he expresses
his opinion, everyone has to repeat it and to admire his wisdom.
But how much wisdom
was contained in the proposal to raise the agricultural tax by 40 billion
rubles? None, absolutely none, because the proposal was not based on an actual
assessment of the situation but on the fantastic ideas of a person divorced
from reality.
We are currently
beginning slowly to work our way out of a difficult agricultural situation. The
speeches of the delegates to the Twentieth Congress please us all. We are glad
that many delegates have delivered speeches [to the effect] that conditions
exist for fulfilling the sixth Five-Year Plan for animal husbandry [early]: not
in five years, but within two to three years. We are certain that the
commitments of the new Five-Year Plan will be accomplished successfully.
(Prolonged applause.)
Comrades! If we
sharply criticize today the cult of the individual which was so widespread
during Stalin’s life, and if we speak about the many negative phenomena
generated by this cult (which is so alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism),
some may ask: How could it be? Stalin headed the Party and the country for 30
years and many victories were gained during his lifetime. Can we deny this? In
my opinion, the question can be asked in this manner only by those who are
blinded and hopelessly hypnotized by the cult of the individual, only by those
who do not understand the essence of the revolution and of the Soviet state,
only by those who do not understand, in a Leninist manner, the role of the
Party and of the nation in the development of the Soviet society.
[Our] Socialist Revolution
was attained by the working class and by the poor peasantry with the partial
support of middle-class peasants. It was attained by the people under the
leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin’s great service consisted of the fact
that he created a militant Party of the working class, but he was armed with
Marxist understanding of the laws of social development and with the science of
proletarian victory in the fight with capitalism, and he steeled this Party in
the crucible of the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the people.
During this fight
the Party consistently defended the interests of the people and became its
experienced leader. [The Party] led the working masses to power, to the
creation of the first socialist state. You remember well the wise words of
Lenin: that the Soviet state is strong because of the awareness of the masses
that history is created by the millions and tens of millions of people.
Our historical
victories were attained thanks to the Party’s organizational work, to the many
provincial organizations, and to the self-sacrificing work of our great nation.
These victories are the result of the great drive and activity of the nation
and of the Party as a whole. They are not at all the fruit of Stalin’s
leadership, which is how the situation was pictured during the period of the
cult of the individual.
If we are to
consider this matter as Marxists and as Leninists, then we have to state
unequivocally that the leadership practices which came into being during the
last years of Stalin’s life became a serious obstacle in the path of Soviet
social development. Stalin often failed for months to take up some unusually
important problems, concerning the life of the Party and of the State, whose
solution could not be postponed. During Stalin’s leadership our peaceful
relations with other nations were often threatened, because one-man decisions
could cause, and often did cause, great complications.
In the past [few]
years, [after] we managed to free ourselves of the harmful practice of the cult
of the individual and took several proper steps in terms of [both] internal and
external policies, everyone [has been able to see] how activity has grown
before our very eyes, how the creative activity of the broad working masses has
developed, and how favorably all this has acted upon economic and cultural
development.
(Applause.)
Some comrades may
ask us: Where were the members of the Politbiuro? Why did they not assert
themselves against the cult of the individual in time? And why is this being
done only now? First of all, we have to consider the fact that the members of
the Politbiuro viewed these matters in a different way at different times.
Initially, many of them backed Stalin actively because he was one of the
strongest Marxists and his logic, his strength and his will greatly influenced
[Party] cadres and Party work.
It is known that
after Lenin’s death, especially during the first years, Stalin actively fought
for Leninism against the enemies of Leninist theory and against those who deviated.
Beginning with Leninist theory, the Party, with its Central Committee at the
head, started on a great scale work on the socialist industrialization of the
country, on agricultural collectivization, and on cultural revolution. At that
time Stalin gained great popularity, sympathy and support. The Party had to
fight those who tried to lead the country away from the correct Leninist path.
It had to fight Trotskyites, Zinovievites and rightists, and bourgeois
nationalists. This fight was indispensable.
Later, however,
Stalin, abusing his power more and more, began to fight eminent Party and
Government leaders and to use terroristic methods against honest Soviet people.
As we have already shown, Stalin thus handled such eminent Party and State
leaders as Kosior, Rudzutak, Eikhe, Postyshev and many others.
Attempts to oppose
groundless suspicions and charges resulted in the opponent’s falling victim to
the repression. This characterized the fall of comrade Postyshev.
In one of his
[exchanges] Stalin expressed his dissatisfaction with Postyshev and asked him,
“What are you actually?”
Postyshev answered
clearly, “I am a Bolshevik, comrade Stalin, a Bolshevik.”
At first, this assertion
was considered to show [merely] a lack of respect for Stalin. Later it was
considered a harmful act. Eventually it resulted in Postyshev’s annihilation
and castigation as an “enemy of the people.”
In the situation
which then prevailed, I often talked with Nikolay Alexandrovich Bulganin. Once
when we two were traveling in a car, he said, “It has happened sometimes that a
man goes to Stalin on his invitation as a friend. And when he sits with Stalin,
he does not know where he will be sent next – home or to jail.”
It is clear that
such conditions put every member of the Politbiuro in a very difficult
situation. And, when we also consider the fact that in the last years Central
Committee Plenary sessions were not convened and that sessions of the Politbiuro
occurred only occasionally, from time to time, then we will understand how
difficult it was for any member of the Politbiuro to take a stand against one
or another unjust or improper procedure, against serious errors and
shortcomings in leadership practices.
As we have already
shown, many decisions were taken either by one person or in a roundabout way,
without collective discussion. The sad fate of Politbiuro member comrade
Voznesensky, who fell victim to Stalin’s repressions, is known to all. Characteristically,
the decision to remove him from the Politbiuro was never discussed but was
reached in a devious fashion. In the same way came the decision regarding
Kuznetsov’s and Rodionov’s removals from their posts.
The importance of
the Central Committee’s Politbiuro was reduced and its work was disorganized by
the creation within the Politbiuro of various commissions – the so-called
“quintets,” “sextets,” “septets” and “nonets” Here is, for instance, a
Politbiuro resolution from October 3, 1946:
“Stalin’s proposal:
“1.The Politbiuro
Commission for Foreign Affairs (’Sextet’) is to concern itself in the future,
in addition to foreign affairs, also with matters of internal construction and
domestic policy.
“2.The Sextet is to
add to its roster the Chairman of the State Commission of Economic Planning of
the USSR, comrade Voznesensky, and is to be known as a Septet.
“Signed: Secretary
of the Central Committee, J. Stalin.”
What [sophistry]! (Laughter in the hall.)
It is clear that the creation within the
Politbiuro of this type of commissions – “quintets,” “sextets,” “septets” and
“nonets” – was against the principle of collective leadership. The result of
this was that some members of the Politbiuro were in this way kept away from
participation in reaching the most important state matters.
One of the oldest
members of our Party, Klimenty Yefremovich Voroshilov, found himself in an
almost impossible situation. For several years he was actually deprived of the
right of participation in Politbiuro sessions. Stalin forbade him to attend
Politbiuro sessions and to receive documents. When the Politbiuro was in
session and comrade Voroshilov heard about it, he telephoned each time and
asked whether he would be allowed to attend. Sometimes Stalin permitted it, but
always showed his dissatisfaction.
Because of his
extreme suspicion, Stalin toyed also with the absurd and ridiculous suspicion
that Voroshilov was an English agent. (Laughter in the hall.)
It’s true – an English agent. A special tap was installed in his home to listen
to what was said there. (Indignation in the hall.)
By unilateral decision, Stalin had also
separated one other man from the work of the Politbiuro – Andrey Andreyevich
Andreyev. This was one of the most unbridled acts of willfulness.
Let us consider the
first Central Committee Plenum after the 19th Party Congress. Stalin, in his
talk at the Plenum, characterized Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov and Anastas
Ivanovich Mikoyan and suggested that these old workers of our Party were guilty
of some baseless charges. We cannot rule out the possibility that had Stalin
remained at the helm for another several months, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan
probably would not have delivered any speeches at this [20th] Congress.
Stalin evidently had
plans to finish off the older members of the Politbiuro. He often stated that
Politbiuro members should be replaced by new ones. His proposal after the 19th
Congress to elect 25 persons to the Central Committee Presidium was aimed at
the removal of old Politbiuro members and at bringing in less experienced
persons so that these would extol him in all sorts of ways.
We can assume that
this was also a design for the future annihilation of the old Politbiuro
members and, in this way, a cover for all shameful acts of Stalin, acts which
we are now considering.
Comrades! So as not
to repeat errors of the past, the Central Committee has declared itself
resolutely against the cult of the individual. We consider that Stalin was
extolled to excess. However, in the past Stalin undoubtedly performed great
services to the Party, to the working class and to the international workers’
movement.
This question is
complicated by the fact that all this which we have just discussed was done
during Stalin’s life under his leadership and with his concurrence; here Stalin
was convinced that this was necessary for the defense of the interests of the
working classes against the plotting of enemies and against the attack of the
imperialist camp.
He saw this from the
position of the interest of the working class, of the interest of the laboring
people, of the interest of the victory of socialism and communism. We cannot
say that these were the deeds of a giddy despot. He considered that this should
be done in the interest of the Party, of the working masses, in the name of the
defense of the revolution’s gains. In this lies the whole tragedy!
Comrades! Lenin had
often stressed that modesty is an absolutely integral part of a real Bolshevik.
Lenin himself was the living personification of the greatest modesty. We cannot
say that we have been following this Leninist example in all respects.
It is enough to
point out that many towns, factories and industrial enterprises, kolkhozes and
sovkhozes, Soviet institutions and cultural institutions have been referred to
by us with a title if I may express it so – of private property of the names of
these or those Government or Party leaders who were still active and in good
health. Many of us participated in the action of assigning our names to various
towns, rayons, enterprises and kolkhozes. We must correct this. (Applause.)
But this should be done calmly and slowly. The
Central Committee will discuss this matter and consider it carefully in order
to prevent errors and excesses. I can remember how Ukraine learned about
Kossior’s arrest. Kiev radio used to start its programs thus: “This is Radio
Kosior.” When one day the programs began without mentioning Kosior, everyone
was quite certain that something had happened to him and that he probably had
been arrested.
Thus, if today we
begin to change the signs everywhere and to rename things, people will think
that these comrades in whose honor the given enterprises, kolkhozes or cities
are named also met some bad fate and that they have also been arrested. (Animation in the hall.)
How is the authority and the importance of
this or that leader judged? On the basis of how many towns, industrial
enterprises and factories, kolkhozes and sovkhozes carry his name. Is it not
about time that we eliminate this “private property” and “nationalize” the
factories, the industrial enterprises, the kolkhozes and the sovkhozes?
(Laughter, applause, voices: “That is right.”) This will benefit our cause.
After all, the cult of the individual is manifested also in this way.
We should, in all
seriousness, consider the question of the cult of the individual. We cannot let
this matter get out of the Party, especially not to the press. It is for this
reason that we are considering it here at a closed Congress session. We should
know the limits; we should not give ammunition to the enemy; we should not wash
our dirty linen before their eyes. I think that the delegates to the Congress
will understand and assess properly all these proposals. (Tumultuous applause.)
Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the
individual decisively, once and for all; we must draw the proper conclusions
concerning both ideological-theoretical and practical work. It is necessary for
this purpose:
First, in a
Bolshevik manner to condemn and to eradicate the cult of the individual as
alien to Marxism-Leninism and not consonant with the principles of Party
leadership and the norms of Party life, and to fight inexorably all attempts at
bringing back this practice in one form or another. To return to and actually
practice in all our ideological work the most important theses of
Marxist-Leninist science about the people as the creator of history and as the
creator of all material and spiritual good of humanity, about the decisive role
of the Marxist Party in the revolutionary fight for the transformation of
society, about the victory of communism. In this connection we will be forced
to do much work in order to examine critically from the Marxist-Leninist
viewpoint and to correct the widely spread erroneous views connected with the
cult of the individual in the spheres of history, philosophy, economy and of
other sciences, as well as in literature and the fine arts. It is especially
necessary that in the immediate future we compile a serious textbook of the
history of our Party which will be edited in accordance with scientific Marxist
objectivism, a textbook of the history of Soviet society, a book pertaining to
the events of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War.
Second, to continue systematically and consistently
the work done by the Party’s Central Committee during the last years, a work
characterized by minute observation in all Party organizations, from the bottom
to the top, of the Leninist principles of Party leadership, characterized,
above all, by the main principle of collective leadership, characterized by the
observance of the norms of Party life described in the statutes of our Party,
and, finally, characterized by the wide practice of criticism and
self-criticism.
Third, to restore
completely the Leninist principles of Soviet socialist democracy, expressed in
the Constitution of the Soviet Union, to fight willfulness of individuals
abusing their power. The evil caused by acts violating revolutionary socialist
legality which have accumulated during a long time as a result of the negative
influence of the cult of the individual has to be completely corrected.
Comrades! The 20th
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has manifested with a new
strength the unshakable unity of our Party, its cohesiveness around the Central
Committee, its resolute will to accomplish the great task of building
communism. (Tumultuous
applause.) And the fact that we
present in all their ramifications the basic problems of overcoming the cult of
the individual which is alien to Marxism-Leninism, as well as the problem of
liquidating its burdensome consequences, is evidence of the great moral and
political strength of our Party. (Prolonged applause.) We are absolutely certain that our
Party, armed with the historical resolutions of the 20th Congress, will lead
the Soviet people along the Leninist path to new successes, to new victories. (Tumultuous, prolonged
applause.) Long live the
victorious banner of our Party – Leninism! (Tumultuous, prolonged applause ending in
ovation. All rise.)
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