Russia’s Red Czar Has Had Astonishing Life

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 September 1949, Page 10

Russia’s Red Czar Has Had Astonishing Life

By

MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE

in the London Daily Telegraph.

Considering his outstanding impact on the times, it is extraordinary how little is known about Generalissimo Stalin. This is partly because, as all who have come into contact -with him have testified, he is by nature reticent and secretive. He has always preferred the reality;of power to its dramatisation; anid if he has been ro,ore acclaimed- than, perhaps, any other , contemporary ruler, his own life' and personal peculiarities have bjeen little advertised. J Few of his close 1 associates, in recent years at any, rate, have eared to publish their! impressions of him. To do so other than in adulatory terms would be to court disgrace and probably death. In any case, those best qualified to assess his career as a revolutionary and his character in his formative years nearly all perished in the ferocious purges he instituted in the second decade’ of the Soviet regime. • . ■ Thus,’what’facts there are have come for the most part from Trotsky and'other exiles who had every reason to hold him in bitter hatred. It would be unreasonable to expect such testimony to be objective, though ; Trotsky’s “The Stalin Schooi of Falsification, ” more than/'the Life of Stalin on /which he was working at the time of his death, contains a great deal of useful'and verifiable’material. i Childish Distortions ’ As for authorised biographies published, in Russia, they are frail of suc’h childish distortions of history and such! obsequious and extravagant ,adulation that they must -be considered quite worthless. One compiled by an impressive'pajnel' of sijx eminent Soviet: writers ' and recently made available “in this country ij; a case in point. " ' / No reference is made to Trotsky’s role in the Civil fWTar. “Jt was Stalin,” the six . authors 7 declare if a italics to accentuate the / point, “wino ■ directly inspired and organised tlq j major victories of the Red; Armyand they go on to heap, abusive epithets on Kamenev, Zinoviev and dhe4 others who, with Lenin, we’re the- fiajst - architects of the Soviet'State., '. //. - Another gem is thre. following: “The resulting military', situation (in June; : 1944)- meant that Vthe Soviet Union was in . a/position,/ with , her own forces alone withput the as-sistance-of hen. Allies, to (occupy the whole of Germany, and .bo 'liberate France. It was this cir cumstance that prompted the British Pi rime Minister, Winston :’Churchill... to undertake an invasion of Westerns Europe.” Crafty And Rutfiles js Now this lack -!of a seri pus biographicqlstudy of Stalin j has been remedied by Mr I. Deutsch er, whose “Stplin”. (Qxfbrd Universr ty Press,

255), published today, provides a truly brilliant presentation of whatever authentic information is available, and a careful analysis of Stalin’s writings, speeches, policies and deeds, in so far as they are ascertainable, from the beginning of his revolutionary careel’ up to the present day. I It is, by the nature of the case, largely a political biography, whose preparation has involved Mr Deutscher in undertaking a study of the origins, course and consequences of the Russian Revolution. Stalin, , as Mr Deutscher shows, is a creation of the Revolution; his personal life and identity have been merged to a quite exceptional degree in the . momentous events which led him on to greatness. If he has been signally ~ ruthless and crafty in seizing and exercising power, it is also true that he has devoted himself. wholly to its pursuit. The journey he has taken from a cobbler’s hut in Georgia to the Kremlin has been long and bloody and hard, with little opportunity for rest or diversion along the way. An Obscure Student It is, indeed, a far cry from the obscure student who in October, 1894, entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary with the idea of becoming a priest _to his present eminence—more powerful in Russia than any Csar, with satellite countries whose Governments acknowledge his suzeramty ano triumphant Chinese armies shouting his name, and in every corner of the world organised movements prepared to subordinate all other considerations to his directive whatever it may be. Mr Deutscher has carefully disentangled what is known about Stalins early years from the legend which sub seqtiently became sacrosanct. Tire picture which emerges is of a spmbre and unlovable character moderate y intelligent. immensely shrewd and mdus trlous, unforgiving, and courageous without ever being imprudent He was drawn into the revolutionary movement through resentment rathei than acceptance of its theory, which he never fully mastered; as a revolutionary, he was active but scarcely emmen p’articularly interesting in view of later developments .are his comments c>n his first meeting with Lenin—one ot’xthe few fragments of personal reminiscence extant: . • . i “1 had hoped to see the mountain eacAe of our party, the great man, .great physically as well as politically. I hat? fancied Lenin as a giant, stately and imposing. How great was my ■disappointment to see a most ordinarylooking man, below average height, in ho way, laterally in no way, distinguishable froirfl ordinary mortals . . He has ensured that m Lenin s sue cessor this deficiency is remedied, no difficulty prints, itself in distinguishing him from ordinary mortals. Stalin’s pitrt in the October Revolution Mr Dewtscher indicates, was curinimlv liesit9l \EVt some of-.-tlio most dramatic moments .he was little m evidTh?ough the .Civil War his power grew, but not’his fapae; and when the party machine wals delivered into hrs hands by his appointment as General Secretary he found .himself - in a position ideally suites! for the exercise of his talent for and the satisfaction of his ambition. Lenin’s collapse in i May, 1922, left, him, in essentials, mas- | ter ’ Stalin’s Rivals ; Because he-wrote’and spoke clumsily, and rKy“ tempted In puMie debate I to measure, his wits against those of

his fellow members of the Politbureau, Trotsky dubbed,’him an insignificant mediocrity. The brilliant Jewish revolutionary could not take seriously the intellectual pretensions of the son of a Russian serf: but Trotsky, whatever he might think of Stalin’s head, was soon, along with all Russia, to feel the weight of his hand. Methodically, and with consummate skill, Stalin set himself to eliminate all actual and potential rivals. He played them off against each other, involved them in craven recantations arid denunciations of one. another, and finally when they had become utterly pitiable and ineffectual, struck them down brutally, his vengeful arm reaching even to distant Mexico. As a final humiliation, they were induced to confess that they had been in the pay of foreign espionage services; and the coup de grace was delivered by the former Menshevik and present Foreign Minister. Andrei Vyshinsky, who shouted in hoarse accents later to become familiar at many an international conference: ‘Shootthe mad dogs!” .... , , Mr Deutscher is inclined to endorse Trotsky’s low rating of Stalin’s mental capacities, and to marvel that one so little versed in revolutionary theory should have proved so adept in dominating a revolutionary situation. Secret Of His Triumph If Stalin, despite a • bitter quarrel with Lenin shortly before Lenin s death, and. warnings against his malign influence in Lenin’s will (whose authenticity Mr Deutscher accepts), was able to'become Lenin’s sole heir when there was so brilliant a galaxy of rival claimants, there must, it would seem be more to him than Tiotsky ever suggested or admitted. Mere cunring and unscrupulousness are not enough to account for his overwhelming triumph. May it not be, perhaps, that the fact of his being the son of a Russian serf, rather than, like the others, begotten and reared in ideological controversy, accounts for . his survival when they have all gone down? Mr Deutscher refers with some contempt to Byzantine, Marxism, but perhaps this brand with all its bizarreries is alone indigenous under the Kremlin’s onion domes. When, partly as a result of his own folly and short-sighted treachery, the Wehrmacht hurled itself upon Russia, Stalin was able to withstand the fearful shock by invoking the age-long tradition of Russian .resistance to invasion. Would Zinoviev have been able to do likewise? Or Kamenev? Or even Trotsky? Astonishing Career The fact is that Mr Deutscher is concerned, as it were, to salvage the Revolution by throwing Stalin overboard—a feat which the Bolshevik Old Guard quite failed to'pull off. While condemninggitalin’s conduct, he tries to justify the results of his policy—an impossible task which, especially in the field of foreign affairs, involves him’in some astonishing mental gymnastics. This accounts for a certain looseness of texture in his last -chapters compared with the admirable precision of the earlier ones. Notwithstanding a certain bias in interpretation, all who wish to try to understand the enigmatic, 'brooding character of Russia’s Red Czar and the circumstances which shaped his astonishing career will do well to- turn to these pages. ' . Thev will find , there the whole story in so far as it is known, or can at this stage be known, set forth with an easy mastery of the English language and displaying an intimate knowledge of the-Revolution, its prophets, precursors and doctrine. - »■'.