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A Materialist Doctrine of Good and Evil: Stalin’s Revision of Marxist Anthropology

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Stalin: From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power

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Abstract

How does one begin to construct a Marxist theory of human nature (anthropology) that acknowledges not only goodness but especially the crucial role of evil? The burden of this chapter is to argue that Stalin provides the outlines of a thorough revision of Marxist anthropology. This revision entailed two related dimensions, the first of which concerns the extraordinary and widespread fervour for human construction of the socialist project, especially the massive process of industrialisation and collectivisation in the 1930s. All of this was captured in the sense that a new man and woman were emerging, harbingers of communism embodied in the Stakhanovites of the 1930s. The very possibility of such a new human being relied upon traditional Marxist assumptions concerning the inherent goodness of human beings. But it was also analogous to the Pelagian and indeed Russian Orthodox theological assumptions concerning basic human goodness (created in God’s image), in which sin is a distortion or disfigurement of that goodness. The second feature entailed the greatest innovation, a well-nigh Augustinian irruption into both the Marxist tradition and Russian Orthodox assumptions: human beings can be far more evil than either tradition assumed. Neither was able to account for such evil. However, Stalin and the Bolsheviks found through the extraordinary effort to construct socialism that human evil could be much, much deeper that they had anticipated. It was precisely that effort which generated the reality and the awareness—as seen in the purges and especially the ‘Red Terror’ of the very same period in the 1930s. It may have been enough of a shock to realise that such evil existed in others, but the most difficult task was to recognise and deal with evil within oneself. Let me be clear: I do not mean evil as part of some mythical, eternal or universal human nature, but evil as part of the identification and construction of a new human nature which was a constituent feature of the socialist project.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I use the terms Latin and Greek speaking, since the terminology of ‘West’ and ‘East’ is highly problematic. Indeed, since Eastern Orthodoxy subscribes to Chalcedonian Christology, it too is a ‘Western’ form of Christianity.

  2. 2.

    ‘Certainly man was created by the will of God alone; but he cannot be deified by it alone. A single will for creation, but two for deification. A single will to raise up the image, but two to make the image into a likeness … Thus we collaborate in the definitive abolition of death and in the cosmic transfiguration’ (Lossky 1978, 73, 86, see also Harrison 2008, 81–82).

  3. 3.

    In doing so, I counter two tendencies of studies on the ‘New Soviet Man and Woman’: they tend to ignore the theological dimension and they glide lightly over Stalin’s contribution, assuming he did not have the intellectual wherewithal to undertake such a task and that others played a great role (Bauer 1952; Clark 1993; Bergman 1997; Attwood and Kelly 1998; Müller 1998; Gutkin 1999, 107–130; Fitzpatrick 2000, 75–79; Hoffmann 2002; Rosenthal 2002, 233–422; Fritzsche and Hellbeck 2008). These studies variously mention the Enlightenment, a Nietzschean underlay, or Russian culture and intelligentsia from the nineteenth century (especially Chernyshevsky) through to Stalin, but barely touch theological matters.

  4. 4.

    Witness the debate between Luther and Erasmus in the fifteenth century on freedom of the will. While Luther propounds an Augustinian position, Erasmus asserts the humanist argument in favour of such freedom (Luther and Erasmus 1969).

  5. 5.

    Geras’s argument (1983) that Marx did indeed hold to a theory of human nature misses the fact that he sought a transformation in that nature (Geras 1983).

  6. 6.

    In 1927, Stalin adds the overcoming of the distinction between town and country, the flourishing of art and science, and the real freedom of the individual from concerns about daily bread and the powers that be (Stalin 1927k, 139–140, 1927l, 133–134).

  7. 7.

    And close to the Enlightenment heritage. Indeed, Stalin speaks of a ‘socialist enlightenment’, which is nothing less than the development of ‘socialist consciousness’ (Stalin 1906–1907a, 339, 1906–1907b, 163).

  8. 8.

    The potential for understanding the negative dimensions of human nature remain undeveloped in this text. These boil down to ‘savage’ sentiments that will pass with capitalism. Later, as I will argue, he develops a much more sophisticated approach to the question of evil.

  9. 9.

    Since the processes of industrialisation and collectivisation are not my primary concerns, the following is an outline of the salient points. The most balanced works are by Davies (1980–2014), Davies, Harrison, and Wheatcroft (1994) and Tauger (1991, 2001, 2005). The same cannot be said of Nove’s effort (1992, 159–225) to interpret the process in terms of neo-classical economics. Many are the ritual denunciations of the failures of the program (Davies 1997, 23–58; Boobbyer 2000, 29–64; Gregory 2004). By contrast, Allen’s (2003) arresting reinterpretation of the significant gains made is well worth consulting. Throughout the 1930s, Stalin provided detailed overviews of progress (Stalin 1933c, 180–210, 1933d, 178–206, 1934g, 312–339, 1934h, 306–332, 1939a, 372–397, 1939b, 302–321).

  10. 10.

    Sanchez-Sibony (2014a, 2014b, 25–56) argues that the programs were a response to the Great Depression. But I suggest that the Depression may well have been a signal of the massive shift under way in global economics, if not a response to the five year plans.

  11. 11.

    Stalin makes a similar observation (Stalin 1933i, 273–274, 1933j, 266–267).

  12. 12.

    See Retish (2008, 239–262) on famine during the Civil War and Bolshevik relief efforts.

  13. 13.

    Withholding of grain for the sake of raising prices was an old practice, appearing not only during the NEP of the mid-1920s, but also much earlier (Deutscher 1967, 301; Stalin 1928e, 1928f, 1928c, 1928d, 1928m, 44–52, 1928n, 40–48).

  14. 14.

    Kotkin (1997, 18) notes that the urban population between 1927 and 1939 leapt from 26.3 to 55.9 million.

  15. 15.

    The best work on the process is by Tauger (1991, 2001, 2005), although see also the detail by Davies (1980–2014, vols. 1 and 2). Elaborations on collectivisation plans appear in Stalin’s reports of 1929 and 1930 (Stalin 1929a, b, 1929q, 131–141, 1929r, 124–134, 1930e, 269–348, 1930f, 261–338, see also 1927i, 227–231, 1927j, 221–226). Realising the difficulties of such a massively disruptive process, the government designated three levels of collectivisation. They began with the Associations for the Joint Cultivation of Land, moved to another level with the artels (the later kolkhoz), and then eventually to full communes (sovkhoz).

  16. 16.

    In 1928–1929 expenditure on agriculture was 714 million roubles; by 1939 it was 13.3 billion roubles.

  17. 17.

    Already in 1906–1907 Stalin gives voice to this perspective: ‘if we bear in mind that this capitalist property will not exist in future society, it is self-evident that the productive forces will increase tenfold’ (Stalin 1906–1907a, 339, 1906–1907b, 163). By 1933, he could point to the evidence of such unleashing (Stalin 1933c, 169, 181, 1933d, 167, 178–179). Stalin’s summary in 1936, in the context of his observations on the draft constitution, emphasises the positive achievements of the two processes (Stalin 1936e, 153–156, 1936f, 120–122).

  18. 18.

    See the documents collected by Siegelbaum and Sokolov (2000) for a fascinating insight into the varying positions taken by people in everyday life. Foreign media of the time already reveals such a bifurcation, with some predicting imminent collapse of the Soviet economy and others appreciating the immense gains made (Stalin 1933c, 165–172, 218–219, 1933d, 162–169, 214–215). Such approaches continue with more recent scholarship, with most typically emphasising the negative dimensions (Davies 1997, 23–58; Boobbyer 2000, 29–64; Gregory 2004; Davies 2005).

  19. 19.

    Tauger (2005, 66) argues that ‘resistance was not the most common response, and that more peasants adapted to the new system in ways that enabled it to function and solve crucial agricultural problems’. Retish (2008) shows how in the earlier period, from 1914 to the end of the Civil War in 1922, the majority of peasants opted for the Bolsheviks and the effort to construct a new society. And as Weeks (2005, 571) observes: ‘One does not have to condone Stalinism to appreciate that for many … the exhilarating experience of the 1920s and 1930s meant—at least at the time—a striving for a more progressive, prosperous, and equitable society’.

  20. 20.

    This was in the context of a massive shift by peasants to cities to work, which placed immense strains on, and thereby frequent time-lags in, the state’s ability to provide such facilities (Siegelbaum 1988, 214–222). Stalin’s assessments do not shirk such problems (Stalin 1930e, 299–308, 1930f, 290–300, 1933c, 193–196, 1933d, 190–193, 1934g, 340–346, 1934h, 333–339).

  21. 21.

    ‘The rapid development of industry had to be matched by an equally “stormy growth” of the culture and consciousness of each individual’ (Hellbeck 2000, 87).

  22. 22.

    Although the studies of Siegelbaum (1988, 210–246), Benvenuti (1988) and Buckley (2006) are mines of detail, they do not address philosophical issues. A contrast is Kaganovsky’s intriguing study (2008), saturated with cultural theory on the construction of the Soviet male, but ultimately assuming it was a ‘cultural fantasy’. One should be wary of one-sided negative assessments, whether assertions that the movement did nothing more than create a capitalist ‘labour aristocracy’ or dismissals as a heavy-handed imposition from above (Trotsky 1972, 78–85, 123–128; Filtzer 1986; Fitzpatrick 1994a, 158; Davies 1997, 31–34; Kotkin 1997, 207–215; Boobbyer 2000).

  23. 23.

    The moment is marked by Stakhanov’s feat on the night of 30–31 August, 1953, when he hewed 102 tonnes of coal in less than six hours, which was fourteen times his quota. Although Stakhanov was actually preceded by Nikita Ozotov’s comparable achievement three years earlier (May 1932), the time was not yet ripe for a full movement (Siegelbaum 1988, 54–71). See also Stakhanov’s autobiography (1937).

  24. 24.

    Siegelbaum’s discussion of this text is inadequate (1988, 212–213).

  25. 25.

    ‘The Stakhanov movement, as an expression of new and higher technical standards, is a model of that high productivity of labour which only Socialism can give, and which capitalism cannot give’ (Stalin 1935j, 90–91, 1935k, 80).

  26. 26.

    See the previous chapter on the ‘delay of communism’.

  27. 27.

    The glimpse included socialist plenty: living in new and spacious apartments, healthy food, cultural pursuits and an abundance of goods (Siegelbaum 1988, 227–236).

  28. 28.

    Earlier he spoke of the ‘the colossal reserves latent in the depths of our system, deep down in the working class and peasantry’ (Stalin 1929c, 116, 1929d, 110).

  29. 29.

    Or as Siegelbaum puts it (1988, 12), Stakhanovism sought to abolish the distinction between managers’ conceptualisations of tasks and workers’ execution of them. At the same time, Stalin warns that new technical standards should not be set to the level of the Stakhanovites, since not everyone has their capability, indeed that they are but glimpses of the society to come (Stalin 1935j, 105–106, 1935k, 89–90; Siegelbaum 1988, 88–98).

  30. 30.

    Such a formulation owes much to Lenin’s re-engagement with Hegel at the outbreak of the First World War (Lenin 1914–1916a, 85–237, 1914-1916b, 77–218; Boer 2013, 103–127). Note also Krylova’s effort (2003) to recover the flexibility of the category of ‘class instinct’ for the subjective side of the dialectic. This is a more fruitful approach than trying to identify a voluntarist, ‘romantic-populist’, revivalist, ‘heroic’, quasi-Romantic or ‘charismatic’ (in Weber’s sense) element of Stalin’s thought and practice (Daniels 1960; Clark 1995, 15–23; Van Ree 2002a, 165–168; Priestland 2005, 2007, 20, 37, 304–324; Fritzsche and Hellbeck 2008, 317).

  31. 31.

    Secondary literature is usually wary about recognising the central role of this passionate desire to construct socialism. These include Viola’s early study (1987), which focuses on the 25,000ers of the first Five Year Plan and the collectivisation drive. Even Fitzpatrick (2000, 67–88, see also 1994b, 272–279) notes this feature, although she attempts to show that such hopes were misguided and ‘utopian’.

  32. 32.

    In terms of temporal development, emulation precedes the emphasis on Stakhanovism, for it emerged at the turn of the decade of the 1930s. However, at a logical level, it functions as another feature of the human nature more fully revealed by Stakhanovism (Stalin 1935j, 89–90, 1935k, 79).

  33. 33.

    Shock work (udarnichestvo) first appeared during the civil war, designating dangerous and difficult tasks, but by 1927–1928 it referred to brigades of workers who sought to exceed obligations and requirements. They would forgo lunch breaks, work double shifts, reset targets and deal with bottlenecks and dangerous situations. Once formalised, the danger was always there that shock brigaders would try to game the system, especially when more than 40% of workers were designated as shock workers. Stalin comments extensively on these brigades, even expanding the idea to international communist movements (Stalin 1932k, 126, 1932l, 124, 1932m, 127, 1932n, 125, 1932e, 135, 1932f, 133, 1932c, 142, 1932d, 140, 1932i, 145, 1932j, 143, 1933c, 187, 218, 1933d, 184, 213, 1933a, b, g, h, 1952a, 318, 1952b, 227–228).

  34. 34.

    Often this increased tempo is presented as vital for overtaking capitalism so as not to be humiliated once again (Stalin 1931i, 40–41, 1931j, 38–39).

  35. 35.

    These Stakhanovite texts are surrounded by numerous notes of greeting, appreciation and urging to greater effort, which were sent to all manner of industrial and agricultural projects in the 1930s and later. Only a sample can be cited here (Stalin 1931a, b, c, d, k, l, m, n, o, p).

  36. 36.

    The most detailed study of these processes is by Kharkhordin (1999, 164–278), who also discusses the late Soviet practices of ‘working on oneself [rabota nad soboi]’. Despite some awareness of theological precedents, he tends to see the processes as imposed ‘from above’, a perspective that is prevalent in other studies of diaries in which individuals sought to remould themselves (Hellbeck 2000, 2002; Fritzsche and Hellbeck 2008, 322–326). Neither this approach nor the ‘resistance’ literature entertains the possibility that common people sought to remake themselves from genuine, if somewhat ambivalent, enthusiasm for the cause (Kotkin 1997, 225–230, 358).

  37. 37.

    The key studies here are by Goldman (1993, 2002), although she is less favourable to Stalin and does not deal with the philosophical question of the new woman. Few, if any, studies draw on the rich tradition of socialist feminism from within the Russian communists, preferring to see ‘feminism’ (a term regarded as bourgeois at the time) as a recent development (Ilič 1999; Chatterjee 2002).

  38. 38.

    This text is not available in the Russian edition.

  39. 39.

    Elsewhere, he deploys terms redolent with simultaneously theological and Marxist associations of a new and redeemed human nature. Here he speaks of throwing off the old fetters of exploitation and capitalism for the sake of the new life of collective socialism (Stalin 1933g, 242–251, 1933h, 236–245). Compare Mark 5:1–13; Luke 8:26–33; and Marx’s use of similar images (Marx 1844a, 175–176, 1844b, 378–379).

  40. 40.

    All of this was captured in article 122 of the 1936 constitution (Stalin 1936a, article 122, 1936b, stat’a 122).

  41. 41.

    Fitzpatrick (2000, 79) examines some dimensions of this sense at a popular level, although she ultimately describes it as ‘grossly misleading’.

  42. 42.

    In contrast to the mechanism of the early Soviet period, with its machine poets and Proletkult, the 1930s represented a turn to a more mature and holistic focus on the individual (Clark 1993, 35–45; Plaggenborg 1998, 35–45; Fritzsche and Hellbeck 2008, 315–326).

  43. 43.

    ‘The Stakhanovites’, a painting by the influential Andrei Deineka (1937), illustrates another dimension of this representation. Here the powerful and youthful workers are dressed in white, leading a multiethnic group.

  44. 44.

    On a similar note: ‘The First Five-Year Plan had both sparked and accompanied an all-out push for industrialization and collectivization of agriculture, marked by unrealistic predictions and incredible confusion. It was an era when extremes became the norm; a period of the heroic and the horrendous, of industrial achievements amid terrible waste, miscalculation, and error; of hatred of the regime and dedication to the cause of building a socialist society’ (Healy 1997, xi).

  45. 45.

    A number of subsequent statements make largely the same points (Stalin 1930g, h, 1934g, 384–385, 1934h, 375–376, 1937g, 284–285, 1937h, 180–181).

  46. 46.

    He speaks here of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectors during the Civil War, who due to inexperience carrying out governing tasks had been given to pilfering and acting in domineering ways. ‘Stain’ is a very Augustinian and non-Eastern Orthodox term (Augustine 1985, X, 3; XX, 26).

  47. 47.

    The references here are myriad, so I can give only a sample (Stalin 1917a1, b1, c3, d3, 1918a1, 47, 1918b1, 270, 1919i, 273–274, 1919j, 263–264, 1920e, f, m, n, 1921o, 119, 1921p, 117–118).

  48. 48.

    Again, the references are a multitude (Stalin 1924o, 247–252, 1924p, 235–240, 1925a1, 91–102, 1925b1, 91–101, 1925i, 267–304, 1925j, 261–297, 1926u, 28–30, 1926v, 27–28, 1930e, 242–269, 1930f, 235–261, 1934g, 288–312, 1934h, 282–306, 1939a, 355–372, 1939b, 290–301, see also 1924c, d, 1927m, 44–62, 1927n, 41–59).

  49. 49.

    Seven years earlier, Stalin had presciently and graphically observed: ‘But those who try to attack our country will receive a crushing repulse to teach them in future not to poke their pig snouts into our Soviet garden [svinoe rylo v nash sovetskiĭ ogorod]. (Thunderous applause.)’ (Stalin 1934g, 312, 1934h, 305).

  50. 50.

    A sample of further references (Stalin 1942c, 42, 1942d, 104, 1942g, 1942h, 1943a, 85, 1943b, 157, 1943g, 150–153, 1943h, 170–173, 1944c, d, 1945e, f, s, t).

  51. 51.

    Some may wish to object that the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact—the ‘Molotov-Ribbentrop’ pact—with Nazi Germany on 29 August, 1939. Indeed, it is assumed that this acts as a symbol of the conjunction of Stalin and Hitler as two sides of the same coin. This reductio ad Hitlerum hardly stands up to rigorous analysis (Adler and Paterson 1970, Losurdo 2008, 171–231, 248–253). Roberts (2006, 30–60) offers a sober assessment of the pact as a move for Soviet neutrality in an expected European war, the context of the other non-aggression pacts signed by the Soviet Union at the time, as well as deep suspicions of the anti-Soviet motives of the United Kingdom and France.

  52. 52.

    Stalin explicitly contrasts fascist racism with soviet affirmative action (Stalin 1942a, 31, 1942b, 97, 1942g, 58, 1942h, 124, 1944e, 394, 1944f, 198).

  53. 53.

    The full closing lines would soon become: ‘Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the fight for the freedom and honour of our Motherland! Death to the German invaders!’.

  54. 54.

    Losurdo (2008, 47–49) interprets this tendency as a ‘dialectic of Saturn’, in which the insurrectionary form of the Bolshevik seizure of power becomes its mode of exercising power. It should be no surprise, then, that plots against the government would continue to form. Stalin indicates an awareness of this dynamic (Stalin 1926u, 51–52, 1926v, 48–49, 1927u, 1927v). Many are those who argue that the threats were ‘constructed’ or ‘fabricated’ for the sake of internal mobilisation, citing the exonerations of the Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras (Connor 1972; Chase 2001, 2005; Baberowski 2003).

  55. 55.

    The pieces by Stalin on opponents internal to Russia and the Soviet State are simply too many to cite. While the Kornilov conspiracy of 1917 gains perhaps half a dozen pieces in volume 3 of the Works, and while the concern over kulaks begins in the mid-1920s (volume 7) and rises to a crescendo with early stages of the collectivisation campaign (1928–1930 in volumes 11–12) for eliminating the kulaks as a class, the struggle with Mensheviks and ‘Menshevism’ runs through thirteen volumes, for three decades from 1906 onwards. Yet the omnipresent Mensheviks are outdone by Trotsky and the related Opposition, who first appears briefly in 1907—as ‘pretty but useless [krasivoĭ nenuzhnost’iu]’ (Stalin 1907e, 52, 1907f, 81)—but then dominates Stalin’s thoughts until the end of volume 14, in the late 1930s and in the context of the Red Terror. Throughout, the reader is struck not by the brutality of ‘crushing all the enemies of the proletariat’ (Stalin 1920s, 402, 1920t, 389), but by the sheer leniency which allowed them to continue for so long (Stalin 1926k, l, 1927m1, 196, 1927n1, 189–190).

  56. 56.

    The argument for a fifth column first appears in 1926: ‘Thus the logic of the factional struggle of our opposition has led in practice to the front of our opposition objectively merging with the front of the opponents and enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat’ (Stalin 1926u, 57, see also 72–77, 1926v, 55, see also 69–70). It would of course become a crucial concern during the Second World War (Stalin 1941a, 6, 1941b, 60).

  57. 57.

    Debate continues as to whether the plots uncovered, especially at the hands of Trotsky, had substance or not, although it is not my task to take sides in such a debate. That Trotsky and his followers were indeed involved in organising to overthrow Stalin is clear; that Stalin deployed guilt by association to impugn others is also clear.

  58. 58.

    Another feature was ‘unmasking’, especially for those who sought to efface former ruling class origins (Fitzpatrick 2005, 91–113).

  59. 59.

    Tellingly, Stalin launched a wave of criticism and self-criticism at the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1927, the same in which he announced the end of the NEP and the beginning of the first Five Year Plan (Stalin 1927c, 337–143, 1927d, 329–333). Elaborations on the theme appear frequently in volume 11 of the Works, of which only a sample can be cited here (Stalin 1928m, 31–42, 1928n, 28–38, 1928k, 75–78, 1928l, 70–74, 1928a, b).

  60. 60.

    Even the much-decried Opposition of the 1920s could play such a role. For instance, when the Opposition accused the Central Committee of ‘mortal sins’, Stalin was not averse to admitting that the Committee could indeed be guilty of sinning by not following the Party line as it should (Stalin 1923q, 367, 1923r, 359, 1923e, 380–381, 1923f, 371–372). Criticism often extended to citizens denouncing others (Kharkhordin 1999, 130–131; Fitzpatrick 2005, 205–239).

  61. 61.

    ‘They shall not conceal evils [or: ulcers, iazv], but, on the contrary, help us to expose our mistakes, to rectify them and to conduct our work along the line now laid down by the Party’ (Stalin 1925e, 22, 1925f, 22, see also 1925c, 31, 1925d, 31).

  62. 62.

    In detail, there were the weepers, who stood outside the church and begged the parishioners to let them in; the auditors, who could listen to the liturgy near the entrance; the genuflectors, who kneeled in front of the auditors, but like them had to leave before the Eucharist; the bystanders, who could stand with the faithful but were not permitted the Eucharist (Erickson 1991, 26).

  63. 63.

    For strange theoretical reasons (based on the slippery distinction between ‘East’ and ‘West’), Kharkhordin (1999, 73–74) suggests that the Bolsheviks were not interested in confession of any type, preferring the lived example of a new life. The evidence here indicates otherwise.

  64. 64.

    At this point, some may be tempted to refer to Stalin’s much decried ‘sins’: the Katyn ‘massacre’, the Ukrainian ‘genocide’, the gulags, the Red Terror and so on. The founding works in such a tradition of demonization are by Robert Conquest (1986, 2015), the erstwhile intelligence agent and employee of the IRD (Information Research Department), which was tasked with providing anti-communist propaganda. Conquest’s dubious ‘historical’ methods were based on émigré hearsay (Getty 1985; Thurston 1986b; Furr 2013).

  65. 65.

    Evgenia Ginzburg (1967, 17) writes: ‘Great concert and leisure halls were turned into public confessionals. Although absolution was not easy to come by—expressions of contrition were more often than not rejected as “inadequate”—the torrent of confessions grew from day to day’.

  66. 66.

    The secondary work on the re-education project is immense, with some memoirs and detailed examinations revealing how extensive the rehabilitation process was (Andreev-Khomiakov 1997; Fitzpatrick 2000, 120, 124, 129; Alexopoulos 2002). However, the tendency in some scholarship is to decry yet further signs of Stalinist brutality, if not to link them—through the reductio ad Hitlerum—to the Nazi Concentration camps (Fitzpatrick 2005, 91–101; Viola 2007). Losurdo (2008, 143–161) provides the most telling rebuttal of this effort.

  67. 67.

    The comment was an impromptu response, made towards the end of 1935, to the speech of a Stakhanovite who claimed that due recognition had been denied him since his father had been a dekulakised kulak. It was published in Komsomol’skaia Pravda, 2 December, 1935, p. 2 (Fitzpatrick 2000, 130).

  68. 68.

    ‘Double-dealing’ was regarded as particularly egregious in the context of the trials of 1936–1938 (Chase 2005, 234–235, 241).

  69. 69.

    Other examples with which I will not deal here include the tension between revolution and counter-revolution, and deviations between left and right (Stalin 1925a1, 94, 1925b1, 94, 1927s, 210–223, 1927t, 208–220, 1921c, 97–100, 1921d, 95–98, 1923k, 194–196, 1923l, 192–194, 1923g, 299–300, 308–326, 1923h, 293–294, 301–319, 1925a, 59–60, 1925b, 60–61, 1925w, 144–146, 1925x, 142–143, 1925y, 192, 210–211, 1925z, 189, 207–208, 1927m, 9, 1927n, 9).

  70. 70.

    The biblical echo comes from Joshua 24:15. Further examples of very similar arguments appear at the time (Stalin 1906c, d, g, h, see also 1926u, 55, 1926v, 53). Lenin was given to similar pronouncements (Lenin 1905e, 543, 1905f, 316).

  71. 71.

    Almost endless are the references (Stalin 1917q1, r1, q, r, g1, h1, 1917s1, 96, 99, 1917t1, 173, 175, 1917k1, 71, 1917l1, 141, 1917g2, 184, 1917h2, 267, 1917m2, 101, 1917n2, 235, 1917e2, f2, w2, x2, s2, t2, k2, l2, q2, r2, o1, p1, 1917g, 296, 1917h, 374, 1917g3, h3, k, l). A feature of the last days before October was the Kornilov revolt, which became the focus of all that was treacherously and desperately counter-revolutionary. A whole series of items in volume 3 of the Works deals with the revolt.

  72. 72.

    Stalin deploys the either-or opposition on myriad occasions throughout his later works on a range of topics. Some examples include: socialism or capitalism, whether in relation to the peasants and the economy or in relation socialism ‘over here’ and capitalism ‘over there’ (Stalin 1925a1, 112, 1925b1, 111, 1930e, 326–334, 1930f, 317–324); either socialism in one country or not (Stalin 1925y, 168–169, 1925z, 167, 1926u, 22–23, 130, 1926v, 21–22, 125); various tactics of the Opposition (Stalin 1926w, 295, 1926x, 282, 1926u, 52, 154, 1926v, 50, 149–150, 1927m, 53–55, 1927n, 50–52, 1927u, 172, 1927v, 167, 1927q, 274, 1927r, 267–268, 1927c, 368, 373–375, 1927d, 358, 363–364, 1927y, 314–318, 1927z, 308–312); either a bourgeois revolution or a proletarian revolution (Stalin 1927a1, 283–284, 1927b1, 278), with specific relevance for China (Stalin 1927w, 225, 1927x, 221–222, 1927i1, 267, 1927j1, 262, 1927o, 358, 1927p, 354); either the particular or the universal, in terms of Leninism’s applicability to an international situation (Stalin 1926e, 18, 1926f, 18).

  73. 73.

    Especially from Lenin (1905a, 1905b, 1917g, 1917h, 1919a, 1919b, 1919c, 1919d, 1919e, 1919f).

  74. 74.

    ‘We must not turn our backs on the positions of the bourgeoisie, we must face and storm them! We must not leave the bourgeoisie in possession of their positions, we must capture them, step by step, and eject the bourgeoisie from them!’ (Stalin 1908e, 99, 1908f, 260, see also 1908c, 114, 1908d, 275–276, 1917a2, 1917b2).

  75. 75.

    Further statements appear along a similar vein (Stalin 1906–1907a, 367–368, 371–372, 1906–1907b, 189–190, 193, 1917e1, 333–335, 1917f1, 417–418).

  76. 76.

    Note: ‘Our state is the organisation of the proletarian class as the state power, whose function it is to crush the resistance of the exploiters, to organise a socialist economy, to abolish classes, etc’. (Stalin 1927a, 184, 1927b, 181).

  77. 77.

    It is beyond my remit to discuss the debates over dictatorship of the proletariat (which Stalin defended) and dictatorship by the Party (of which he and others were accused). This was an often-delicate argument, with Stalin arguing the dictatorship of proletariat entailed the close bond between Party and proletariat and peasantry. The strength of the bond determined the strength of the dictatorship (Stalin 1926m, 236–237, 1926n, 225, 1925i, 352, 1925j, 343–344, 1926e, 27–30, 1926f, 26–28). It is easy to see how this might be (mis-)interpreted as an argument for the dictatorship by the Party (Stalin 1926e, 33–64, 1926f, 31–60, 1926u, 49, 82–84, 1926v, 47, 78–80, 1927i1, 256, 1927j1, 251–252).

  78. 78.

    Balibar (2007, 49–55) completely misses this point, as well as the dialectic of intensification itself, in accusing Stalin of a scholastic ‘abandoning’ of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the 1936 constitution with the claim that class struggle had by and large been overcome. Apart from the fact that the term appears consistently throughout the ‘Short Course’, it is worth noting Stalin’s reply to earlier versions of Balibar’s criticism: ‘If the broadening of the basis of the dictatorship of the working class and the transformation of the dictatorship into a more flexible, and, consequently, a more powerful system of guidance of society by the state is interpreted by them not as strengthening the dictatorship of the working class but as weakening it, or even abandoning it, then it is legitimate to ask: Do these gentlemen really know what the dictatorship of the working class means?’ (Stalin 1936e, 177, 1936f, 135).

  79. 79.

    Later, this would entail a search for a new term to embrace Soviet society, such as ‘Soviet people’ and ‘Soviet Motherland’ (Stalin 1945e, 33–34, 1945f, 220–221, 1945q, 52, 1945r, 228). See further Chap. 6.

  80. 80.

    He was less interested in a major feature of Lenin’s argument, during the first years of the NEP, of using capitalism to build socialism (Lenin 1921a, 334–357, 1921b, 210–237), although he made occasional statements on this line until the end of the NEP (Stalin 1925i, 374, 1925j, 364–365, 1926e, 80–96, 1926f, 75–90).

  81. 81.

    Further basic statements also appear (Stalin 1925a1, 95–102, 1925b1, 95–101, 1925i, 288–295, 1925j, 281–288).

  82. 82.

    This strategy appears in the famous Catechesis by Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov), which was the textbook in Russian imperial schools and theological colleges of Stalin’s time. Philaret argues for the truth of Eastern Orthodoxy by mediating between the extremes of Roman Catholicism and Calvinism. An excellent and relatively recent example of the claim to truth by means of opposing the ‘errors’ of the ‘West’ appears in the work by Yannaras (1991).

  83. 83.

    Seeds also may be found in his comments concerning the extraordinary acceleration of revolutionary education and consciousness during the intense globules of revolutionary time, as also in Stalin’s reflections on the dying of the old and the birth of new (Stalin 1906o, 201–207, 1906p, 367–373, 1927c, 339–340, 1927d, 331).

  84. 84.

    The whole of the Fifteenth Congress of 1927 in many respects lays the more immediate groundwork for the new level of dialectical intensification. This is a very literate text, with sustained metaphors, story-telling, and careful rhetorical structures (Stalin 1927c, 1927d).

  85. 85.

    Some scattered references appear before this text (Stalin 1929i, 15–16, 37–41, 1929j, 14–15, 33–39).

  86. 86.

    This colourful group included ‘the private manufacturers and their servitors, the private traders and their henchmen, the former nobles and priests the kulaks and kulak agents, the former Whiteguard officers and police officials, policemen and gendarmes, all sorts of bourgeois intellectuals of a chauvinist type, and all other anti-Soviet elements’ (Stalin 1933c, 211, 1933d, 207).

  87. 87.

    A year later, at the Seventeenth Congress, he summarises these points (Stalin 1934g, 357–358, 1934h, 350–351).

  88. 88.

    ‘The doomed enemy hurls his last forces into action, resists desperately in order to escape stern retribution. He grasps and will grasp at the most extreme and base means of struggle. Therefore it should be borne in mind that the nearer our victory, the higher must be our vigilance and the heavier must be our blows at the enemy’ (Stalin 1945c, 18–19, 1945d, 211–212).

  89. 89.

    Apart from the four texts I have discussed, Molotov recalls that Stalin repeated this observation often at the time (Resis 1993, 254; Roberts 2006, 18).

  90. 90.

    Getty (1985, 204) notes this tension, but describes it in terms of a struggle between Stalin’s ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ positions, and that his effort to combine the two was ‘facile’, speaking—like any politician—out of both sides of his mouth. By contrast, Van Ree (2002a, 115–116) suggests somewhat unpersuasively that Stalin could maintain the argument for intensification after the proclamation of the achievement of socialism by suggesting that consciousness lagged behind actual circumstances.

  91. 91.

    For some commentators the Red Terror functions as the epitome of the ‘evil’ of Stalinism, if not of communism per se (Volkogonov 1994; Figes 1998; Werth et al. 1999; Fitzpatrick 1994a, 163–170, 2000, 190–217; Harris 2000; Gellately 2007; Gregory 2009; Conquest 2015).

  92. 92.

    After the bullets missed Lenin on 14 January, two found their mark on 30 August. One hit his arm and the other was embedded in his neck and spilled blood into a lung. They were fired by Fanya Kaplan, the Socialist-Revolutionary, and they left Lenin clinging to life. Even here, external forces seemed to have played a role, with the British agent, Robert Bruce Lockhart, engaged in inciting a plot to overthrow the Soviet government due to its efforts to seek a peace treaty with the Germans (Long 2008).

  93. 93.

    ‘Having learned of the villainous attempt of the hirelings of the bourgeoisie on the life of Comrade Lenin, the world’s greatest revolutionary and the tried and tested leader and teacher of the proletariat, the Military Council of the North Caucasian Military Area is answering this vile attempt at assassination by instituting open and systematic mass terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents’ (Stalin 1918w, 130, 1918x, 128).

  94. 94.

    It was officially announced in an article called ‘Appeal to the Working Class’, in the 3 September 1918 issue of Izvestiya. A couple of days later the Cheka published the decree, ‘On Red Terror’.

  95. 95.

    This consistency shows up in the very efforts, in secondary scholarship, to decry such a development (Fitzpatrick 2000, 115–138, 2005, 91–101; Alexopoulos 2002).

  96. 96.

    See also Stalin’s iterations of this position in my earlier discussion.

  97. 97.

    By comparison, in China one of the most telling instances of counter-revolutionary brutality of the Guomindang before 1949 was the practice of shooting, without question, any woman found with natural feet and short hair. The assumption by the forces of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-Shek) was that any such woman was obviously a communist.

  98. 98.

    In 2 Tim 2:21 the reflexive appears (ekkathare eauton), cleanse yourself, now by analogy with a utensil.

  99. 99.

    The Synodal translation was first published in full in 1878, and would have been used by Stalin. Begun in 1813 under the auspices of the Russian Bible Society, it was eventually completed under the direction of the Most Holy Synod. As with most major Bible translations, its distinctive features influenced the Russian language and literature deeply. With some revisions, it remains the Bible used by a number of churches in Russia today, including the Russian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholics and Protestant Churches.

  100. 100.

    Although Kharkhordin (1999, 133–142) does not deal with Stalin in any extended way, his discussion of the theory and practice of purges in the strict sense has some useful insights, especially in terms of the need for unity and ‘fusion’ or ‘cohesion [spaika]’. It is important to note that trials, operations, arrests and terror were not designated purges. However, since scholarly usage has since included such matters under the label of ‘purge’, I do so here as well.

  101. 101.

    Many are the references here (Stalin 1919q, 190, 1919r, 186, 1919o, 195, 197, 1919p, 191, 193, 1919m, 211, 215, 230–231, 1919n, 204, 208, 222–223, 1919a, 1919b, 1921m, 73, 1921n, 72, 1921c, 100–101, 1921d, 98–99, 1924s, 239–240, 1924t, 227–229, 1939a, 400–401, 1939b, 322–323).

  102. 102.

    This reference to a master undermines Kharkhordin’s proposal (1999, 154–161) that the connection between self-criticism and purge in the collective brought about an internal dynamic of purging that led to the Red Terror. Implicit in his analysis is the absence of an external arbiter, such as an independent legal system, but implicit here is the absence of a God.

  103. 103.

    Trials took place at all levels of the complex judiciary, the purpose of which was both judgement and education (Kotkin 1997, 256–257).

  104. 104.

    See the key document from the Central Executive Committee legitimating the Red Terror, from 1 December 1934 and a few hours after Kirov’s murder (Boobbyer 2000, 65–66).

  105. 105.

    I have no need to add to the interminable debate over the number of deaths, although Wheatcroft’s and Nove’s analyses are the soberest (Wheatcroft 1993, 1996, 1999; Nove 1993).

  106. 106.

    A number of collections of primary documents relating to the Red Terror are worth consulting (USSR 1936, 1937; 1938; Getty and Naumov 1999; Boobbyer 2000, 65–82; Weinberg and Bernstein 2011, 184–207).

  107. 107.

    It is worth noting that the trials fooled the High Command of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, who, believing that the Red Army had been weakened by the military trials, anticipated that it would collapse and that Moscow would fall in short order. The military was far stronger than expected and, given the enmeshment of the army with the people, public morale and support of the government held strong (Thurston 1996, 199–226; Roberts 2006, 15–19).

  108. 108.

    It was much less than has often been imputed. The most judicious assessments remain those by Getty (1993) and Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov (1993).

  109. 109.

    Getty (1985, 119–128) offers an insightful assessment of Trotsky’s involvement through his son, Lev Sedov (see also Martens 1996, 119). Getty concludes that a bloc and plot did form, that Trotsky knew of it, and that the NKVD was aware of its development (see further Furr and Bobrov 2010).

  110. 110.

    For instance, even the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR at the time, Joseph E. Davies, found the trials perfectly fair (Larina 1994, Martens 1996, 142). Debate over the purges and trials continues to produce an increasingly diverse range of assessments. As a sample, these include: repetitions of Cold War denunciations; counter-revolutionary thermidor; Stalin’s childhood trauma; personal paranoia (as a defence against latent homosexuality); political paranoia; routinisation of evil; methodical application of incalculable violence; detailed dictatorial control; chaos and disorder (which was counter-productive); intentionalist versus decisionist; a world of signs removed from the real world; a unique innovation by Stalin; elimination of political alternatives; diversion of dissent; response to economic problems; a species of revivalism; theatre; inquisition; production of ‘official fear’ in contrast to ‘cosmic fear’; ‘communist sacrifice’ in which the Party’s ‘failure’ is reinscribed on itself; and the usual reductio ad Hitlerum (Leites 1955; Marcuse 1958, 112; Tucker 1965, 1990, 171; Trotsky 1972, 86–114; Shernock 1984; Rittersporn 1986; De Jonge 1988; Argenbright 1991; Manning 1993b; Roberts 1995; Davies 1997, 113; Kotkin 1997, 327; Ihanus 1999; Žižek 1999; Lih 2002; Bauman 2004; Service 2004; Roberts 2006, 17–18; Priestland 2007, 304–393; Gerlach and Werth 2008; Conquest 2015). Many have been influenced implicitly by Khrushchev’s misleading ‘secret speech’ at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR in February 1956 (Furr 2011; Losurdo 2008).

  111. 111.

    This is Martin’s distinction (2001a), in relation to various policies surrounding the national question.

  112. 112.

    Stalin recognises as much in his observation, ‘We must smash and cast aside the fourth rotten theory to the effect that the Stakhanov movement is the principal means for the liquidation of wrecking’ (Stalin 1937c, 266, 1937d, 168).

  113. 113.

    Stalin captures this situation in his comments from 1939: ‘At the beginning of 1938 Rosengoltz, Rykov, Bukharin and other fiends were sentenced to be shot. After that, the elections to the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics were held. In these elections 99.4% of the total vote was cast for the Soviet power’ (Stalin 1939a, 396, 1939b, 320).

  114. 114.

    The trial and Bukharin’s behaviour have perplexed observers ever since. Apart from the dismissal of the confessions as coerced, some have suggested it was the last service of a true believer in the cause, that he used Aesopian language to turn the trial into a trial of Stalin himself, that he subtly pointed to his innocence while ostensibly admitting guilt and that the charge was primarily political and ideological. These interpretations not so much misread the material, but rather manifest at a formal level precisely the tension at the heart of a materialist doctrine of evil (Cohen 1980, 370–381; Medvedev 1989, 367; Larina 1994; Service 2004; Koestler 2006; Priestland 2007, 360–364).

  115. 115.

    Stalin’s earlier observation on Bukharin is uncannily prescient: ‘In general, Bukharin was in a repentant mood. That is natural: he has been sinning against the nationalities for years, denying the right to self-determination. It was high time for him to repent. But in repenting he went to the other extreme’ (Stalin 1923u, 271, 1923v, 266). See also Stalin’s earlier criticisms of Bukharin, already back in 1917 and then when he ‘out-lefted’ Bukharin in the socialist offensive (Stalin 1917g2, 195–199, 1917h2, 182–186, 1929i, 102–113, 1929j, 96–107). Those familiar with Hegel may well be reminded of the famous section of the Phenomenology on ‘Absolute Freedom and Terror’ (1977, 355–364). Hegel was, of course, rather horrified by the Terror of the French Revolution, seeing it as the (momentary) effacement of ‘all distinctions and all continuance of distinctions’ within the absolute freedom of abstract self-consciousness (361). No constituent parts, no mediation, no alienation, in which the general will is coterminous with an individual. Despite recoiling and eager to move on, Hegel glimpses in his own way the possibility that evil is a heartbeat away from the good: the absolute positive of freedom ‘changes around to its negative nature’ (361).

  116. 116.

    An echo of Bukharin’s experience may be found in the complex policies of disenfranchisement (lishentsy), in which both people and officials were never quite sure that they were really able to distinguish and identify the enemy, for the enemy always seemed to elude their grasp (Alexopoulos 2002, 86–95).

  117. 117.

    Fitzpatrick’s comment (2000, 192), ‘anyone could turn out to be an enemy’, may be read—against her intentions—in such a way. Similarly, her treatment (2005, 114–152) of the double-lives of many individuals provides further evidence of this deeply internal process.

  118. 118.

    It may be possible to read the constant switches between repressive and anti-repressive positions in this light, rather than as mere indecision and wavering (Getty 1985, 1993).

  119. 119.

    This metaphoric internalisation of class goes beyond the suggestion that class struggle ceased to be a central motif of the 1930s (itself contestable), in favour of rooting out cadres with bureaucratic and anti-communist tendencies (Priestland 2007, 324–329).

  120. 120.

    Deutscher (1967, 262) unhelpfully casts this opposition as one between revolutionary optimism and pessimism in relation to the working class, which he then attaches to Trotsky and Stalin.

  121. 121.

    The memoirs by Andreev-Khomiakov (1997) indicate very well the double nature of the process, for in his anti-communist effort to show up bitter experiences by many at the time he also reveals the sheer enthusiasm and significant achievements.

  122. 122.

    Naiman (2002) hints at but does not develop the necessity of the connection between what he calls ‘healing and terror’ in the Soviet project.

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    Roland Boer

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Boer, R. (2017). A Materialist Doctrine of Good and Evil: Stalin’s Revision of Marxist Anthropology. In: Stalin: From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6367-1_4

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