“Power tends to corrupt,” wrote Lord Acton in a celebrated phrase, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Certainly, totalitarian regimes of all kinds seem to have this effect. By blurring the difference between reality and the will of the individual, a regime of absolute power, in which all criticism is prohibited, serves eventually to unbalance the mind. This almost certainly happened with Hitler. And towards the end, Stalin’s mind was clearly unhinged. In the absence of any check or control he believed himself to be omnipotent. Fear of the masses drove the bureaucracy to close ranks still more fervently around the Leader who guaranteed their privileges. The growth of the economy was paralleled by a sharp increase in repression and in the cult of Stalin. At the 19th Party Congress, the cult of Leader attained its most grotesque expression. Here are just a few examples from Malenkov’s closing speech:
Of cardinal importance to Marxist-Leninist theory and to all our practical activity is the work of Comrade Stalin just published: Economic Problems of socialism in the USSR. (Loud and prolonged applause) …
Thus, the Party’s plans for the future, defining the prospects and ways of our advancement, are based on a knowledge of economic laws, on the science of the building of communist society worked out by Comrade Stalin. (Loud and long continuing applause.) …
A major contribution to the Marxian political economy is Comrade Stalin’s discovery of the basic law of modern capitalism and the basic economic law of socialism (!)…
Comrade Stalin’s discovery… Comrade Stalin shows… Comrade Stalin has shown us… Comrade Stalin discovered… Comrade Stalin has revealed…
The works of Comrade Stalin are graphic testimony to the paramount importance our Party attaches to theory… Comrade Stalin is constantly advancing Marxist theory… Comrade Stalin has disclosed the function of language as an instrument of social development, and indicated the prospects for the future development of national cultures and languages…
And finally, after numerous interruptions by “applause”, “prolonged applause”, and “loud and long continuing applause”:
Under the banner of the immortal Lenin, under the wise leadership of the great Stalin, forward to the victory of Communism!…
(On the conclusion of the report, all the delegates rise and greet Comrade Stalin with loud and prolonged cheers. There are cries from all parts of the hall: “Long live the great Stalin!” “Hurrah for our dear Stalin!” “Long live our beloved leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin!”) (Report of 19th Congress of the CPSU, pp. 134-44.)
Not satisfied with this, Stalin was preparing to launch a further series of bloody purges in Russia on the lines of 1936-38. He no longer trusted anyone. Lifelong Stalinists were rounded up and imprisoned. In 1952, Stalin accused his faithful puppets Voroshilov and Molotov of being British spies, and banned them from attending meetings of the leadership. Mikoyan was denounced as a Turkish spy and even Beria was banished from Stalin’s presence! At the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev described the paranoid atmosphere in Stalin’s leading circle: “Stalin could look at a comrade sitting at the same table with him and say: ‘Your eyes look shifty today.’ It could be taken for granted that afterwards the comrade, whose eyes were supposedly shifty, would be under suspicion.” (The Road to Communism – Report on the 22nd Congress CPSU, p. 111.)
In January 1953, Pravda announced the so-called Doctor’s Plot, a “group of saboteur-doctors” who had been arrested for murder and attempting to “wipe out the leading cadres of the USSR”. Most were Jews and were accused of links with the Jewish organisation Joint, which was under the direction of US imperialism. Three of those arrested were accused of working for British intelligence. A campaign against the Jews was conducted under the guise of “cosmopolitanism and Zionism”. Pravda began to whip up a campaign against threats of “counter-revolution”. It looked like the prelude of another mass purge, which sent a shudder through the ruling circle. There is no doubt that Stalin intended to liquidate them all. “All the signs pointed to another 1937”, states Medvedev (R. Medvedev, Let History Judge, p. 558). But it was not simply self-interest that motivated them, but a mass purge would endanger the whole position of the bureaucracy.
Stalin’s actions were endangering the position of the whole bureaucracy. It was not only that he was threatening to murder the top layer. The Soviet Union was only just recovering from the devastation of the war. To plunge it again into the chaos and lunacy of another purge would have had the most catastrophic effects. However, on 5 March 1953, Stalin suddenly died. Even if he was not murdered – and all the evidence suggests that he was – his death could not have come at a more opportune time. Shortly afterwards, the Doctor’s Plot was declared a fabrication. Rather than a bloody purge that threatened the whole basis of the regime, reforms from the top were needed to maintain bureaucratic rule intact.
Stalin’s death provoked a power struggle within the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy were forced to loosen their control. Reforms were needed from above to prevent revolution from below. Huge protests had already rocked the regime in East Germany. Mass uprisings had taken place in the labour camps, which were bloodily suppressed. Ferment among the workers and intelligentsia reached new heights. Those that favoured ‘reform’, headed by Khrushchev, succeeded in taking the reins of power. As Khrushchev himself explains in his memoirs, the bureaucracy were terrified of the movement the ‘thaw’ may unleash. But they had no alternative.
We in the leadership were consciously in favour of the thaw, myself included… We were scared – really scared. We were afraid the thaw might unleash a flood, which we wouldn’t be able to control and which could drown us. How could it drown us? It could have overflowed the banks of the Soviet riverbed and formed a tidal wave which would have washed away all the barriers and retaining walls of our society. From the viewpoint of the leadership, this would have been an unfavourable development. We wanted to guide the progress of the thaw so that it would stimulate only those creative forces which would contribute to the strengthening of socialism. (Khrushchev, N., Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, pp. 78-9.)
For “socialism”, read “the rule of the bureaucracy”. As a consequence, a purge of the top hard-line Stalinists was carried through. The state secret police were brought to heel and Beria was shot. The most draconian laws were removed and the forced-labour camps were reduced in number, following strikes and uprisings of the prisoners in Vorkuta and other camps. An amnesty was granted to all, except political prisoners.
The imbalances of the Soviet economy, where everything was sacrificed to the building of heavy industry, was now partially corrected towards the production of consumer goods. Khrushchev introduced a whole series of price reforms and measures to increase production. General concessions were made to the workers. The regime in the factories was loosened up. The average wage rose from Rbs715 a month in 1955 to Rbs778 in 1958. The official price index showed little change from 1954 to 1980. Many prices were cut. In 1957 the campaign began to catch up with the United States in the production of meat, milk and butter. The combined income in cash and kind from collective work rose from 47.5 billion in 1952 to 83.8 billion in 1957. Real consumption per head increased by 66 per cent between 1950 and 1958, by which time it had reached a level of three times that of 1944.
The USSR was no longer the primitive economy of the past, but was emerging as the second world superpower. Around half the population now lived in the towns. The number of workers rose dramatically from 3.8 million in 1928 to 17.4 million in 1955. As opposed to this, the numbers in the USA rose by only a third over the same period. The Soviet industrial working class in 1928 was roughly a third of the US; in 1955 it was slightly larger. The Soviet proletariat had grown every year since the Second World War by two to three million a year. There was a massive concentration of the proletariat in factories that dwarfed those in the West. For example, there was a staggering 200,000 workers in the Gorky car plant. In the Togliatti factory, there were some 170,000 workers. It was the biggest and most powerful working class in the world.
Shorter hours were introduced for young workers without loss of pay, longer holidays, and a shorter working week by two hours, with further reductions to come, a seven-hour day to be introduced in stages; paid maternity leave to be extended to 112 days, increased pensions and disability benefits – which increased the average pension by 81 per cent. A huge house building programme was undertaken. In the 20 years between 1950 and 1970, Soviet food consumption per head doubled, disposable income quadrupled, and purchases of consumer durables rose 12 times. (Quoted in F. Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War, pp. 138-9.)
In 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev made his famous ‘de-Stalinisation’ speech. Every crime was placed at the door of Stalin. The problem was alleged to be the ‘cult of the personality’. Stalin was held responsible for the frame-ups, the murders, the persecutions, the concentration camps, and the other horrific crimes against the Soviet working class and the national minorities. But how could a single individual carry through these acts? Such a position has no relation to Marxism, which does not explain history in terms of ‘Great Individuals’. The materialist conception of history explains that, if an idea is put forward (even an incorrect idea) and gets mass support, then that idea must represent the interests of some class or group within society. So, if Stalin did not represent the proletariat, who did he represent? Himself? No. Stalin represented the bureaucratic caste, the millions of privileged officials who dominated the Party and government, and who ran industry, society and the state in their own interests.
After castigating Stalin, Khrushchev turned to ‘comrade’ Beria, who he described as an “abject provocateur and vile enemy… who murdered thousands of Communists and loyal Soviet people… It has now been established that this villain had climbed up the government ladder over an untold number of corpses”. This was certainly true, but it is applicable not only to Beria, but to all the other bureaucrats who eagerly participated in Stalin’s crimes as a means of furthering their careers and feathering their nests.