One must not discuss anything behind the Party’s back. In view of our present situation, this is a political act, and a political act behind the Party’s back is manifestly an anti-Party action, which could only be committed by people who have lost all connection with the Party.—A. P. Smirnov, 1932
Both our internal and external situation is such that this iron discipline must not under any circumstances be relaxed…. That is why such factions must be hacked off without the slightest mercy, without being in the slightest troubled by any sentimental considerations concerning the past, concerning personal friendships, relationships, concerning respect for a person as such and so forth. We are currently at war and we must exercise the strictest discipline.
—N. I. Bukharin, 1932
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE plenum of January 1933 took place in a crisis atmosphere. Famine was still widespread. Because of the hunger and the rapid industrialization, population movements took on a titanic scale as millions of peasants moved about seeking food and employment. As a result of mass recruitment drives in 1929–32, the party’s membership had swelled from 1.5 to 3.5 million.1 Many of these were raw, “untested” recruits about whom the party leadership knew little. As we have seen, significant numbers of lower-level cadres had balked at the stern measures of collectivization, and the Riutin and Trotsky episodes had threatened to mobilize these lower cadres against the nomenklatura leadership. From the point of view of that senior leadership, things had slipped out of control in a threatening way.
Desperate to establish control, the senior party leadership took several measures. After having encouraged peasant migration to labor-short industrial areas in 1931, the Bolsheviks were faced with a loss of control of population movement as masses of peasants streamed into the cities. As a response to the famine, the regime established an internal passport system at the end of 1932 to stabilize residency.2 To defuse the threat from its local cadres, the Central Committee in January 1933 established political departments in the rural Machine Tractor Stations in order to purge recalcitrant local party officials. At the same time, a purge of these local cadres was under way, and the January 1933 plenum ordered a general purge of the swollen party ranks.3
Given its loss of control over the country and the various threats it faced, the nomenklatura could not afford any splintering of its own ranks. The members of the Riutin and Trotskyist groups in the fall of 1932 were, from the point of view of party position, marginal figures, and it is difficult to imagine that they constituted a real threat to the regime. They had been deprived of their party posts years before, and their leaders (Riutin and Trotsky) had been expelled from the party. But at precisely this moment, in November 1932, another dissident group was “unmasked” by the police. This time its members were high-ranking members of the current party leadership.
In 1932 N. B. Eismont was People’s Commissar for Supply of the RSFSR government. His apartment was the scene of a series of gatherings of friends and comrades who were critical of the Stalin line on collectivization and industrialization. Among these were V. N. Tolmachev (a department head in one of the transport sections of the RSFSR) and E. P. Ashukina (chief of the Personnel Planning Department of the USSR Commissariat of Agriculture), but the most influential member of the circle was A. P. Smirnov, an Old Bolshevik party member since 1898 and chairman of the Public Housing Commission of the Central Executive Committee. Smirnov had been a member of the party Central Committee since 1912 (the year Stalin became a member) and in 1932 sat on its powerful Orgburo.
At one of these gatherings on 7 November 1932 (ironically, the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution) Eismont had a conversation with one I. V. Nikolsky, an old friend recently arrived from work in the Caucasus. It is not clear exactly what Eismont said to Nikolsky, but it seems that there was considerable drinking and talk about removing or replacing Stalin as party leader. In any case, to Nikolsky the conversation had an “antiparty character,” and he reported Eismont’s statement to his friend M. Savelev, who in turn wrote a letter to Stalin about it.4 The police quickly rounded up Eismont and his circle, all of whom were quickly interrogated. A. P. Smirnov was not present at Eismont’s gathering, but was on close working and personal terms with many of those present. Although he was not arrested, he was summoned to the Politburo for an “explanation” and face-to-face confrontation with Eismont.5
The participants in this affair were of sufficient rank and stature that their “case” was the subject of a debate at the next plenum of the Central Committee in January 1933. M. F. Shkiriatov and Ya. Rudzutak were the main accusers from the party’s disciplinary body, the Central Control Commission. Smirnov spoke in his own defense: “First of all, I would like to resolutely and categorically disavow the vile, counter-revolutionary words concerning Comrade Stalin ascribed to me…. One must not discuss anything behind the Party’s back. In view of our present situation, this is a political act, and a political act behind the Party’s back is manifestly an anti-Party action … It’s absolutely clear.”6
The attack on Smirnov at the meeting illustrates a number of aspects of the party leadership’s attitude toward oppositionists in the 1930s, including guilt by association or by subjective attitude even in the absence of a specific act or violation. They also show the stricter demands that the Stalinist leadership made of former oppositionists. It was no longer enough for repentant oppositionists repeatedly to admit their mistakes, condemn their former positions, and take responsibility for the continued offenses of their former partisans. Such a position was considered too passive— “standing to one side” in the “active struggle with anti-party elements [and] for the general line of the party.” For the Stalinists, it was now necessary for the former dissidents actively to attack their followers, to inform on those still in opposition, and to work visibly to affirm the Stalinist version of reality.
As a member of the party leadership, Smirnov was obliged to oppose and to report any nefarious activities or speech to disciplinary authorities. Smirnov’s “confession” was only partial. Because he wasn’t present at the ill-fated drinking party, he did not think that he was personally guilty, or at least as guilty as the others. Moreover, he expressed reservations by not denying his crimes, “if there are any.” His speech was constative, about true and false charges. Subsequent remarks made it clear that this was not enough. The party leadership wanted performative speech. It expected Smirnov and the others to carry out a full apology ritual: to admit their guilt, to outline the dangerous consequences of their previous actions, and thereby to affirm the truth of the charges and the right of the leadership to make them. Smirnov had not played that role completely, and his critics were quick to renew their attack.
Stalinist political practice involved considerable symbolism and ritual, and it is well known that all revolutionary regimes try to establish legitimacy and consolidate support with rituals and cults.7 In the Soviet period, the officially sponsored cults of Lenin, Stalin, and the Great Patriotic War are famous.8 Until the recent release of internal documentation, however, we have not been able to analyze elite ritual practice. Elites “justify their existence and order their actions in terms of a collection of stories, ceremonies, insignia, formalities, and appurtenances…. It is these—crowns and coronations, limousines and conferences—that mark the center as center and give what goes on there its aura of being not merely important but in some odd fashion connected with the way the world is built.”9
The inseparable connection between politics and ritual can be seen in the Stalinist “apology ritual” used to censure an important official. The official, who was either removed or merely censured, played his part by recognizing that Moscow’s position was “completely correct,” reiterating Moscow’s critique in the context of “self-criticism.” These apologetic rituals were designed to affirm unanimity and were “a show of discursive affirmation from below” to demonstrate that the dissident “publicly accepts … the judgment of his superior that this is an offense and reaffirms the rule in question.”10
Such rituals had public versions that were performed before the population. The most obvious examples are the show trials of the 1930s, which were crude morality plays involving apologies, confessions, and obvious scapegoating. Yet these rituals were also acted out by, and it seems for, the elite itself in private venues. In Central Committee plenums and other secret texts which never saw public light of day, we see these ritual performances being carried out in the secret confines of the elite as a kind of “fellowship of discourse” within a closed community.11 The affirmation and validation provided by such practices seem to have been no less important for the elite than for the population it ruled.
Several of Smirnov’s critics, including Control Commission members Shkiriatov and Rudzutak, practically equated Smirnov’s behavior with treason. The unfelicitous type of performative speech he had uttered had in fact defined him as an opponent of the party, regardless of his intentions.
Stalin’s cult of personality had already grown to such proportions that discussions of removing him from his post were regarded as calls for a “counterrevolutionary” coup. Several speakers referred to Stalin repeatedly as the vozhd’, a word that carries connotations of “chief” above and beyond a simple “leader.” Since replacement of Stalin by routine electoral procedures was considered inconceivable, to remove him by other means implied illegal or treasonous acts. And, the logic went, such a removal could be successful only if it were violent.
Indeed, Yan Rudzutak maintained that even talk of reelecting the general secretary was a betrayal of the party. According to the new discourse —Party = Central Committee = Stalin—criticism of one was betrayal of all. As A. I. Akulov put it in his speech to the January 1933 meeting, “Stalin’s policy is our policy, the policy of our entire Party. It is the policy of the proletarian revolution, it is the policy not only of the proletarian revolution in our country but of the proletarian revolution in the world. That’s what Stalin’s policy is all about. And these gentlemen will never succeed in separating us from our leader [vozhd’].”12
As M. F. Shkiriatov put it,
Regarding the leader of our Party, Comrade Stalin—what means did they employ in their struggle against Comrade Stalin? … They said that they were prepared to remove Comrade Stalin, whereas, in their testimony, Eismont and others tried to replace one [particular] word with another: they had spoken not of “removing” [ubrat’] but of “dismissing” [sniat’] him…. We, on the other hand, consider, that all of these words—“change” [smenit’], “dismiss,” “remove”—are one and the same thing, that there is no difference whatsoever between them. In our opinion it all amounts to violent dismissal…. Now Comrade Smirnov declares that he loves Stalin. But love has nothing to do with it…. The matter has nothing to do with love. Love consists of carrying out the line pursued by the Party headed by Comrade Stalin.13
Shkiriatov’s was an extreme statement of an extremist position. Even though Smirnov had never been a member of an opposition group, Shkiriatov had shifted the burden of proof to Smirnov and demanded that he prove the history of his struggle against the opposition, that he prove that he had not been an adherent.
For Shkiriatov, even jokes and stories carried a dangerous counterrevolutionary character and could have no place in the prescribed loyal narrative. During NEP in the 1920s, jokes and ditties had not been sources for official obsession. In the 1930s, however, the onset of collectivization, its height, the period following Kirov’s assassination, and the terrible year 1937 each brought dramatic increases in persecution for “anti-Soviet agitation.” Jokes, songs, poems, and even conversations that in any other political system would have been ignored as innocent were now seen as dangerous crimes. Shkiriatov called them “sharp weapons” against the party. The regime’s agents carefully recorded jokes, poems, and the like, and these were matters for attention and concern by the country’s highest political circles.14 Osip Mandelstam was arrested for a poem. Because he was a prominent writer, his writings could in fact be seen as a propagandistic “weapon” against the party. But it is harder to classify as dangerously political the hundreds of thousands of utterances by ordinary citizens. Nevertheless, the regime was deeply concerned.
Yan Rudzutak, another Control Commission official, spoke for much of the elite nomenklatura, which believed that Stalin was their symbol and partner. To remove him was to remove them. As Rudzutak put it,
These, the finest people of the Party, did not fear many years in prison and in exile, and now these revolutionaries, who devote themselves to the victory of the Revolution, these old revolutionary warriors, according to Smirnov, are afraid to vote against Comrade Stalin? Can it be that they vote for Stalin from a fear for authority while, behind his back, they prepare—if anything comes up—to change [meniat’] the leadership? You are slandering the members of the Party, you are slandering the members of the CC, and you are also slandering Comrade Stalin. We, as members of the CC, vote for Stalin because he is ours (applause). exclamations. Right! (applause).15
These apology rituals had several aspects. Pragmatically, from the point of view of the elite as a whole, when the accused played his role properly, the scene provided a scapegoat who could be used as a negative example to those below and a symbol or signpost for a change in policy. Secondly, these scenes allowed Stalin to mobilize the united (and nearly always unanimous) support of the Central Committee behind him in his moves to isolate and discredit his opponents.
The unitary rituals had other effects as well. Speaker after speaker rose to join the unanimous criticism of the accused. The collective denunciations and pronouncements worked: they served to affirm and validate the organized collective (the Central Committee in this case) as an authoritative body. Although Stalin and his circle certainly chose the accused in this case, the collective elite were being asked to validate not only his choice but their right to pass judgment on such matters. As any ritual does, these Central Committee meetings allowed the participants to make a group affirmation of their organization as a “society” or even a political subculture in the system.
Finally, like all rituals, these meetings contributed to the construction of self-identity and self-representation of the participants as individuals. By being present as a member, by participating in what might appear to be meaningless repetitive speech, the participants implicitly made statements about who they were individually. Self-identity is, of course, a function of many complex variables, including class, kin, nationality, gender, personal experience, and others. Among these components are political status and place in the social hierarchy. Participation in apology and other rituals was to say “This is who I am: I am a revolutionary and a member of the party elite. I along with my comrades are part of the governing team of Stalinists. I insist on party discipline and stand against those who break it. In that position, I am making a contribution toward party unity and therefore toward moving the country historically toward socialism.”
The former rightist oppositionists N. I. Bukharin, A. I. Rykov, and M. P. Tomsky were also called upon to speak and make their position clear in relation to the Smirnov group. Rykov, in his speech, repeated the ritual self-criticism demanded of former oppositionists and tried to demonstrate his lack of any connection with the group. Tomsky took a more contrary stand. Although he also criticized his former oppositionist positions, he pointed out that the party should not make too much of careless and drunken conversations at evening parties. Bukharin’s speech was much more repentant and his position was judged more acceptable; those of Rykov and Tomsky were not and they were roundly denounced in the discussion.
Bukharin accepted the premise that the new situation and new threats demanded strong discipline and unconditional unity. He understood the need for a unifying, affirming text that would make clear his continued membership in the elite. In distinction to other speakers, though, Bukharin did not invoke Stalin’s name as vozhd’, nor did he explicitly equate Stalin with the Central Committee: “Comrades, with regard to Aleksandr Petrovich Smirnov’s group, it seems to me that no Party member can be of two minds about it: if it is necessary for us, on the whole, to indignantly repudiate a group of this sort, then it should especially—twice and thrice— be repudiated now, and severe punishment should be meted out.”16
It may be instructive to compare these tougher demands with the relatively civil treatment of oppositionists back in 1930. As we have seen, Bukharin in his 1930 speech made several witty comments that were received with friendly laughter by his audience. His colloquies with Kaganovich and Molotov were like gentlemanly debates aimed at seeking compromise, and his critics behaved in a polite and civilized manner.
But in 1933 the mood was quite different; it had become tense and anxious. While Bukharin could joke about opposition in 1930, Shkiriatov in 1933 asserted that “jokes against the party are agitation against the party.” The texts of Smirnov’s critics were laced with nostalgic references to party discipline in Lenin’s time, but in 1932 they were demanding much more: “iron discipline” required Central Committee members to become informers on each other. Bukharin’s jest in 1930 about “physically destroying” members of the opposition elicited laughter from the Central Committee. One wonders whether it would have done so in 1932.
For their parts, several of the opposition leaders accepted the logic of the new situation. Bukharin’s speech emphasized the main point: “If it is necessary for us, on the whole, to indignantly repudiate a group of this sort, then it should especially—twice and thrice—be repudiated now, and severe punishment should be meted out.” Smirnov himself recognized the dangers inherent in the new situation and accepted the notion that discussing Stalin’s removal was “a political act, and a political act behind the Party’s back is manifestly an anti-Party action.” Smirnov found no fault with the logic of the accusation in principle; he simply denied that he had done it.
But Smirnov, Tomsky, and Rykov did not fully accept that formal guilt or innocence was not the question. For the Stalinists, on the other hand, the party made the truth. After all, it had been Trotsky who had said that one cannot be right against the party. As a party member and member of the Central Committee, Smirnov was a soldier. His duty, if so ordered, was to confess, to report on others, and to proclaim his “crimes” in order to help the party in its struggle. To disagree, or even to defend oneself against an accusation, was tantamount to insubordination, to “taking up arms against the party” in wartime, to counterrevolution. Bukharin, on the other hand, understood. Another former oppositionist, Karl Radek, also grasped the new requirements and quickly did his duty:
Dear Comrade Rudzutak—After reading Comrade A. P. Smirnov’s statement, in which he rejects with great indignation the very possibility of being held in suspicion in Right-wing factional work, I am hereby informing you of the following:
In 1927, sometime during the summer, G. A. Zinoviev notified those who were then the leaders of the Trotskyist opposition of a proposal made to him, i.e. to Zinoviev, by A. P. Smirnov, for the formation of a block against Comrade Stalin. As related by Zinoviev, Smirnov complained about the regime that was numbing the Party, [that] the Party had no clear policy concerning the peasantry, at times making concessions to the peasants, at times revoking them….
The fact that A. P. Smirnov has denied this factional past of his in general sheds light on his statements regarding the charges brought against him today of working for the opposition.
With a Communist salute,
K. Radek.17
Another important element of the nomenklatura’s treatment of the opposition was the distinction between personal and political factors. Bolsheviks had always separated their political and personal lives; the bitter political disputes between Lenin and Zinoviev over the question of seizing power in 1917 did not prevent them from maintaining cordial personal relations. But by 1932 the stakes were considered so high that fond personal relations and one’s “good will” were specifically sacrificed to political needs. Consider the following 1933 remarks from Commissar of Defense Voroshilov:
Comrade Tomsky, one more piece of advice, as a friend,—after all, you and I were once close friends: please do not think that you are so clever (laughter). You spoke before us here, and I was ashamed for your sake. You were once an intelligent person, but owing to the fact that you slept through the past four years, you poured out such rubbish here that I was simply ashamed for your sake. Even a Marxist circle of the lowest rank would be ashamed to read this. It’s all elementary. All those peas pushed here and there by the nose—all of this is nothing but utter rubbish. We expected a different kind of speech from you, different words.18
In the end, A. P. Smirnov was expelled from the Central Committee and the Orgburo but was allowed to remain in the party with the warning that his continued membership depended on his future behavior. Those party members present at the ill-fated soiree were expelled from the party. Eismont and several others were sentenced to three years in labor camps. Technically, discussing the removal of Stalin was not a crime covered by the criminal code, but the Special Conference (Osoboe Soveshchanie) of the secret police (Obedinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie, OGPU), had the right to sentence people to camps for such things as “antiSoviet agitation” or being a “socially dangerous element.”
All of the participants still living in 1937 would be arrested and shot for “counterrevolutionary activities;” thus the punishments meted out in 1933, especially to Smirnov, seem relatively light and show that despite the fiery rhetoric of some Stalinists, there was still some indecision about how hard to push the dissidents. Repression of real or imagined opposition groups in this period was becoming more common. But the sources we have from the 1932–34 period paint a rather ambiguous picture of the direction of party policy. Sampling the archives from this period, we shall find a mixture of hard- and soft-line policies on matters relating to political dictatorship and dissidence.
Some have argued that Stalin and his closest associates may already have been preparing for a major purge and attempting to set in place a series of decisions, personnel, and practices designed to facilitate a subsequent unleashing of terror. According to this explanation, the countervailing soft-line measures were the result of a liberal (or at least antiterror) faction within the leadership that tried to block Stalin’s plans. Said to consist of S. M. Kirov, V. V. Kuibyshev, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and others, this group would have favored a general relaxation of the dictatorship; now that capitalism and the hostile class forces had been defeated, there was no reason to maintain a high level of repression.19
But the documents now available make this view untenable. There is little evidence for such a plan on Stalin’s part or of the existence of a liberal faction within the Politburo. Above and beyond routine squabbles over “turf” or the technicalities of implementation, neither the public statements nor the documentary record shows any serious political disagreement within the Stalin group at this time. Rather, the simultaneous pursuit of both soft- and hard-line policies was the result of indecision within an anxious leadership that reacted on an ad hoc basis to events rather than proceeding according to grand plans.20