CHAPTER I
1905: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LENIN
Lenin had been dead for a week when, at a memorial meeting on January 28, 1924,
Joseph Stalin recalled the first time he had met the Bolshevik chieftain. It had been at a
Party Conference in Tammerfors (Tampere), Finland, in December 1905, just a few days
before Stalin’s twenty-sixth birthday. “I was hoping,” he related,
to see the mountain eagle of our Party, the great man, great not only
politically, but, if you will, physically, because in my imagination I had
pictured Lenin as a giant, stately and imposing. What, then, was my
disappointment to see a most ordinary looking man, below average height,
1
in no way, literally in no way, distinguishable from ordinary mortals …
What a curious way to honor the deceased leader. Considering the occasion and the
political advantage of presenting himself as a long-time admirer of Lenin, it is hardly
surprising that Stalin said he had had high expectations for meeting the “mountain eagle.”
But these same factors make incongruous and puzzling his declaration of having been let
down by discovering that Lenin was no giant but literally an “ordinary mortal.” Why did
the supposedly faithful disciple introduce this negative note into his memorial tribute?
Had he in fact been disappointed with Lenin? And, if so, did this disappointment affect his
attitude toward the leader of the Bolsheviks?
The available evidence indicates that young Djugashvili—venturing for the first
time beyond the Caucasus onto the national political scene—did indeed look forward
intensely to meeting Lenin at the Conference. He claimed in his memorial remarks that as
early as 1901 he had recognized in Lenin “a man of extraordinary caliber” and “a leader of
the highest rank,” and that he had written to a friend in 1903 about the “deep hold” that
Lenin had on him.
2
Stalin’s writings from the early years offer striking documentation of
this hold. In letters penned in the autumn of 1904, the admiring provincial praised his
hero for the “firm and determined voice” which made him “a real mountain eagle” in the
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2
Party. Among Russian Marxists, Lenin alone inspired favorable comments from
Djugashvili, who exhibited contempt for the other Party leaders, particularly G. V.
3
Plekhanov, the founding father of Russian Marxism. Between January and August 1905
Djugashvili published three tracts, one quite long, in which he vigorously championed
Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? (1902), calling it a “splendid” book by “an outstanding
theoretician and practical leader of revolutionary Social Democracy.” He praised also
4
Lenin’s 1904 work, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Djugashvili’s high regard for
Lenin is further documented by the memoirs of Georgians who knew him in these early
years and later—independent of the Stalinist historical machine—recalled his strong
5
attachment at that time to Lenin’s thinking. These sources leave no doubt that on the eve
of the Tammerfors Conference Djugashvili held Lenin in very high esteem.
What, then, are we to make of Djugashvili’s stated “disappointment” with Lenin?
Was he being disingenuous? No. There are good reasons to believe that upon meeting
Lenin he did indeed experience serious disappointments and that these disappointments
6
sharply affected his attitude toward the older man. For after Tammerfors—in stark
contrast to Djugashvili’s earlier championing of Lenin—citations from Lenin’s works
abruptly ceased and praise of Lenin disappeared from Djugashvili’s writings. Indeed, in
the seven years from Tammerfors to early 1913 (when arrest and Siberian exile brought
Djugashvili's political activity to a halt), he quoted Lenin’s words just once—in July 1906 to
7
support a position which the flexible Lenin had abandoned —and mentioned Lenin’s name
only seven other times in the writings that he included in his collected Works.
8
How Djugashvili referred—or failed to refer—to Lenin in the first three months after
Tammerfors demonstrates this abrupt change in his attitude toward Lenin. In a pamphlet
in January 1906 calling on the divided Russian Social Democrats to unite, Djugashvili
noted matter-of-factly that “Lenin’s formulas defining membership in the Party and
democratic centralism have been adopted,” thus removing one cause of dissention within
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9
the Party. Two months later, in the final installment of a three-part article urging the Party
to endorse peasant demands to seize the land, he pointed out, again matter-of-factly, that
in 1903 “the Party, through the mouths of Plekhanov and Lenin, said that we would back
the peasants if they demanded the confiscation of all the land.”
10
This phrasing is merely
descriptive and expresses no praise of Lenin; indeed, by linking Lenin with Plekhanov and
reducing him to the status of a mouthpiece of the Party, it slights him. In another article
that month on the same subject, Djugashvili chose not to refer to Lenin’s views at all;
instead, he went far afield to find an authority—the German Social Democrat Karl
Kautsky—to buttress his position.
11
The change in Djugashvili’s references to Lenin and
his search for alternative authorities indicate that something had gone quite wrong at
Tammerfors.
12
In his 1924 recollections, Stalin offered an explanation for his disappointment. He
had thought, he said, that it was
the usual thing for a “great man” to come late to meetings so that the
assembly may await his appearance with bated breath; and then, just
before the “great man” enters, the warning whisper goes up: “Hush! …
Silence! … He’s coming.” This ritual did not seem to me superfluous,
because it creates an impression, inspires respect. What, then, was my
disappointment to learn that Lenin had arrived at the conference before the
delegates, had settled himself somewhere in a corner, and was
unassumingly carrying on a conversation, a most ordinary conversation
with the most ordinary delegates at the conference.
Though this conduct seemed to the young provincial “a violation of certain essential
rules,” he claimed that sometime later he realized that “this simplicity and modesty” was
“one of Lenin’s strongest points.”
13
Stalin’s explanation for his disappointment is not convincing. Not only does it
seem doubtful that at Tammerfors Stalin could have been truly disappointed that Lenin
failed (if in fact he did fail) to make the expected grand entrance, but the recollection of
another delegate to the Tammerfors Conference confirms the delegates’ excited
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anticipation of Lenin’s arrival
14
and thus calls into question Stalin’s account. Neither does
it seem credible that Stalin—standing about 5' 4" tall himself—could really have blamed
Lenin for not being the physical “giant” he had envisioned. By confessing in 1924 to such
trivial and adolescent, perhaps even fictitious blemishes, Stalin was subtly seeking
political advantage by displaying his own modesty and thus likening himself to the
unpretentious “mountain eagle” he was sketching.
15
In any event, Stalin’s words do not
explain the sharp and sudden change in his political attitude toward Lenin which his postTammerfors writings document.
Asking what expectations Djugashvili likely had for the first meeting with his hero
suggests an explanation for the change in his attitude toward Lenin. Of lower class origin
himself, Djugashvili very well might have expected Lenin to be of similar background, only
to become disenchanted by discovering that the hero was of privileged birth. Lenin’s
What Is To Be Done?, so admired by Djugashvili, offers considerable reasons to think that
its author had arisen from the lower ranks of society. The Party, Lenin had written, was
divided into an opportunist wing, which he associated with “the educated classes,”
“liberals and intellectuals,” and a revolutionary wing, the success of which depended on
helping worker revolutionaries become professional revolutionaries. It was from “the
working class masses,” Lenin emphasized, that there would come
not only an increasing number of talented agitators, but also talented
organizers, propagandists and “practical workers” in the best sense of the
term (of whom there are so few among our intellectuals who, for the most
part, in the Russian manner, are somewhat careless and sluggish in their
habits). When we have forces of specially trained worker-revolutionaries
who have gone through extensive preparation ... no political police in the
world will then be able to contend with them, for these forces, boundlessly
devoted to the revolution, will enjoy the boundless confidence of the widest
masses of the workers.
In Lenin’s view too little had been done, and he held Party intellectuals “to blame” for
making “silly speeches about what is ‘accessible’ to the masses of the workers” and for
talking down to them with “facetious remarks and mere phrases,” instead of helping to
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5
educate them and enable them to produce their own leaders.
16
Lenin’s sharp criticisms of
the character and attitudes of intellectuals and his confidence in what workers could
accomplish might have suggested to Djugashvili that Lenin was of working class
background, as might Lenin’s insistence that the progress of the revolution depended not
on intellectuals but on worker-revolutionaries arising to take positions of leadership at all
levels of the Party.
It was precisely the class element in What Is To Be Done? that Djugashvili centered
on when he defended it in 1905. Because, he said, the autocracy and the “liberal
intelligentsia” were trying “to corrupt the class consciousness of the proletariat” and
destroy its “political independence” by promoting nationalism, clericalism, trade unionism
and other aspects of “bourgeois ideology,” Djugashvili likened the Party to a “fortress”
whose inhabitants had to be “extremely vigilant” against attempts to corrupt revolutionary
proletarian consciousness. But even within the Party, he warned, there were two trends:
one of “proletarian firmness,” the other of “intellectual wavering.” The waverers—the
moderate Mensheviks—he blasted as “opportunists” and “pseudo Marxists” who falsely
claimed to be “truly proletarian in character”; to the contrary, he said, “the vacillation of
the intellectuals… springs from their social position.” Though Djugashvili acknowledged
that “socialist consciousness [was first] worked out by a few Social Democratic
intellectuals who [possessed] the time and opportunity to do so,” he railed at those who
argued that the heightening of socialist consciousness among ordinary workers could be
achieved “only by Social Democratic intellectuals.” “Why do you believe,” he taunted
Lenin’s critics,
that the Social Democratic Party consists exclusively of intellectuals? Don’t
you know that there are many more advanced workers than intellectuals in the
ranks of Social Democracy? Can’t Social Democratic workers introduce
17
socialist consciousness into the working class movement?
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6
These words testify to Djugashvili’s pride in his own class and to his resentful hostility
toward the educated, privileged orders.
If workers completely displaced intellectuals within the Party, it would have been
fine with Djugashvili. At the conclusion of his third defense of Lenin’s views, he quoted
approvingly a passage from Plekhanov—an old passage from 1903 when Plekhanov had
backed Lenin’s proposed strict rules for Party membership. At that time Plekhanov had
said that he did not understand
why it is thought that Lenin’s draft, if adopted, would close the doors of our
Party to numerous workers. Workers who wish to join the Party will not be
afraid to join an organization. They are not afraid of discipline. But many
intellectuals, thoroughly imbued with bourgeois individualism, will be afraid
to join. Now that is exactly what’s good about [Lenin’s proposal]. These
bourgeois individuals usually are also representatives of opportunism of
every sort. We must keep them at a distance. Lenin’s draft may serve as a
barrier against their invasion of the Party, and for this reason alone all
opponents of opportunism should vote for it.
Djugashvili challenged critics of Lenin to “repeat these words of Plekhanov with
proletarian straightforwardness.” To do less, he concluded, would be “thoughtless and
irresponsible.”
18
For Djugashvili there doubtless was a delicious irony in quoting the
Menshevik leader Plekhanov to support a key Bolshevik tenet, but he dusted off
Plekhanov’s words because they authoritatively expressed his own sentiments.
In view of his strong class pride and class prejudice,
19
how must the young
Georgian have envisioned the faraway author of What Is To Be Done? For envision him he
did—as a towering figure, a “mountain eagle” soaring above the world of mortals.
Considering the importance to Djugashvili of class identity, his admiration of Lenin and his
desire to emulate him, it seems probable that he imagined Lenin as a hero of working class
background, for only someone he thought to be “truly proletarian in character” could have
served him as a hero and a model. If this supposition is accurate, discovering at
Tammerfors that Lenin was of privileged origin with quite bourgeois manners might have
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7
not only disappointed Djugashvili but, more important, caused him to reconsider his
estimate of Lenin. For Djugashvili, no one from the privileged classes could be trusted.
Another possible explanation of Djugashvili’s disappointment with Lenin at
Tammerfors is suggested by the fact that, although in 1924 Stalin said that he was
recalling “the first time I met Lenin,” his recollection contains no indication whatever that
he actually met Lenin then. An earlier memory of the conference, made on the occasion of
Lenin’s fiftieth birthday in 1920, is also silent on the subject. But how he must have looked
forward to meeting Lenin. Surely the twenty-five year old admirer awaited Tammerfors
with an intense expectation of finally meeting his hero face-to-face and receiving from him
a hearty handshake, a comradely embrace, and welcoming words of approval, appreciation
and acceptance. Perhaps Lenin would even seek him out to discuss Party affairs.
20
Whatever Djugashvili’s precise expectations, it would appear they were dashed.
Not only do his recollections fail to mention any actual contact with Lenin at Tammerfors,
but his phrasing suggests remoteness from him. The 1924 account vaguely describes
Lenin as sitting off “somewhere in a corner.”
21
Distance, or even a wall, between Lenin
and his disciple is also intimated by Stalin’s recalling in 1920 that
A group of seven, closely associated with Comrade Lenin, and on whom we
provincial delegates used to bestow all kinds of epithets, had assured us
that Ilyich was opposed to boycotting the Duma and in favor of taking part
22
in the elections.
Stalin’s account suggests that Lenin held himself aloof from “we provincial delegates,”
leaving the task of dealing with them to his protective “group of seven.” But if Lenin did
not talk with Djugashvili and the other provincials, he did engage in “a conversation, a
most ordinary conversation,” Stalin called it, “with the most ordinary delegates at the
conference.”
23
This description suggests a bitter and lasting resentment against Lenin for
talking with “most ordinary” people while denying him, in his own eyes the delegate most
deserving of being with Lenin, even the chance to exchange greetings. No wonder “we
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8
provincial delegates” uttered “all kinds of epithets” about Lenin’s “group of seven” which
kept Djugashvili at a distance from his hero.
Though the sense of distance between himself and Lenin in Stalin’s accounts is
genuine, it reflects less a spatial and more a personal and political remoteness, for in fact
he did have close contact with Lenin at Tammerfors. It was not, however, the encounter
he had hoped for. Instead of comradeship, a clash developed between the two men over
the issue whether to participate in elections to the new tsarist assembly, the State Duma,
the establishment of which had been decreed in October. In the two months prior to
Tammerfors, Djugashvili had strongly opposed participation, repeatedly denouncing the
Duma as a trap intended to blunt revolutionary efforts.
24
But as Stalin recalled in 1920, at
Tammerfors Lenin initially had favored participation. After “the pro-boycotters from the
provinces, from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Siberia and the Caucasus went onto the attack,”
Stalin continued, Lenin reversed himself. “We were astounded,” Stalin remembered, and
“We gave him an ovation.”
25
Though there are elements of truth in Stalin’s account, it greatly misrepresents
what occurred at Tammerfors and conceals an important conflict between himself and
Lenin. Fortunately, the memoirs of two other delegates, P. F. Kudelli and E. M.
Yaroslavsky, offer a quite different and enlightening version of what happened. Though
Stalin must have been aware of Kudelli’s memoir, first published in 1926 in a collection of
reminiscences about Lenin, he did not refute it and found nothing in it for which to punish
her: she survived the Great Purges and died in 1944 at age 85.
26
Neither does Stalin
appear to have taken offense at Yaroslavsky’s recollection; indeed, its publication as part
of Pravda’s commemoration of Stalin’s sixtieth birthday suggests that Stalin authorized its
27
appearance.
The absence of any punitive reaction against Kudelli and Yaroslavsky
indicates Stalin’s acceptance of the veracity of their accounts.
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9
According to Kudelli and Yaroslavsky, when the Conference turned, on its final
day, to the question of participating in elections to the Duma, Lenin, as presiding officer,
read a draft resolution that he said a group of delegates had given to him. The resolution
called on the Party to take part in the election campaign in order to exploit the opportunity
to agitate, but then categorically to refuse to participate in the Duma. This proposal
caused a stir and even considerable laughter among the delegates, most of whom favored
a complete boycott. From the floor Djugashvili and his fellow Georgian, G. P. Telia,
shouted their vigorous opposition to the scheme, intensifying the commotion. Finally, the
delegates demanded to know what Lenin himself thought of the plan. Acknowledging that
he had been behind the proposal despite his pose of neutrality in presenting it, he said,
according to Kudelli, “I must confess to complicity in this crime.” An uproar followed, and
only with difficulty could Lenin continue speaking: “To you, the local workers, it’s clear …
you, of course, know better the mood of the masses in the localities, to you belongs the
right to decide this question … I have been in emigration too long, as it’s clear to see.”
Then he left the hall. Subsequently, a commission, including both Djugashvili and Lenin
as members, was formed to draw up a new resolution endorsing complete boycott of the
Duma elections. It was approved by the Conference.
28
What impact did these events have on Djugashvili’s view of Lenin? We can only
speculate, of course, but several conclusions seem inescapable. Instead of a majestic
“mountain eagle” with a hero’s “firm and determined voice,” Lenin had revealed himself as
an unprincipled and wrong-headed weakling. Not only had he erred (from Djugashvili’s
standpoint) on an important issue of principle, but his attempt to dupe the Conference and
his running away after being found out demonstrated glaring lacks of integrity and
courage. Furthermore, by his own admission he was an émigré who was out of touch with
Russian reality.
29
This confession must have underscored Lenin’s unworthiness in the
eyes of Djugashvili, for whom all privileged persons were politically unreliable. The
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10
“vacillation of the intellectuals,” he believed, “springs from their social position.”
30
And
for the young Djugashvili vacillation—or “inconsistency”—was “a blot on the political
physiognomy of a ‘leader’” which “undoubtedly must be noted.”
31
The changed attitude
toward Lenin apparent in Djugashvili’s writings after Tammerfors indicates that the
Georgian saw Lenin’s political failings at the Conference as a very large blot indeed on his
standing as a revolutionary leader.
Djugashvili’s post-Tammerfors writings offer one other indication of his changed
attitude. Through February 1906 Djugashvili had never signed any of his articles or other
publications, but in March 1906 he published seven articles under a pseudonym,
“Besoshvili.”
32
The name suggests neither emulation of Lenin nor a desire to enter the
world of Russian politics, but rather a pulling back after Tammerfors to his Georgian roots.
It is a name derived from “Beso,” the nickname of his father. But because the son had
suffered abuse at the hands of the father,
33
creating a pseudonym based on the father’s
name seems a problematic act. Why then did Joseph take the name? An answer is
suggested by a description he gave late in 1906 of his father as a cobbler with pettybourgeois aspirations who, having failed in business, had been reduced to working in a
shoe factory. Here, Djugashvili claimed, his father experienced “proletarian strivings” and
became “imbued with socialist ideas.”
34
This description shows that the son wanted to
think of his father as having become a proletarian. Thus it seems likely that the
pseudonym “Besoshvili” symbolized his claim, as the factory worker Beso’s son, to true
proletarian status. Supporting this hypothesis is a remark Stalin made to Party associates
in 1926: “I’m the only real proletarian here, for my name ends in ‘shvili.’”
35
If the name was
indeed meant to signify true proletarian status, it also obliquely testified to his rejection of
the non-proletarian Lenin’s legitimacy as a revolutionary hero and the leader of the Party.
Or, as Stalin put it in 1924, at Tammerfors he had come to recognize that Lenin was not the
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11
anticipated “great man,” either physically or politically, but rather “in no way, literally in no
way, distinguishable from ordinary mortals.”
One observer (Edward Ellis Smith) has claimed that “Tammerfors may have
marked the beginning of Stalin’s hatred of Lenin,”
36
but he offers no evidence to support
the claim that Stalin hated Lenin. Probably Smith’s judgment is extreme. Lenin's unheroic
behavior and political mistakes at Tammerfors did shatter the uncritically admiring lens
through which the youthful Djugashvili had imagined his hero. Discovering Lenin's
privileged background and his political unreliability deeply disaffected the Georgian. But it
is not clear that events at Tammerfors led Djugashvili to write off Lenin as a revolutionary
leader entirely. Lenin, after all, had recanted his error—an act which might have allowed
him to regain some of his lost standing with Djugashvili. In the months and years ahead,
Djugashvili would monitor Lenin's political positions and continue to evaluate his fitness
for leadership. The yardstick he would employ was how well Lenin adhered to the
inflexible precepts and unforgiving prejudices that constituted Djugashvili's own notion of
the revolution.
1
SW, 6:56.
2
SW, 6:54-55. Stalin also claimed that his friend showed the letter to Lenin, who sent a
“profoundly expressive letter” in reply. This story is most likely a fabrication. See the
arguments in Leon Trotsky, Stalin. An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence (New York
1941), 48-49; Wolfe, 424-26; and Tucker, Stalin, 122-24.
3
Plekhanov, the young Georgian said, had fallen behind the times and become “quite off
his head,” “quixotic,” confused and opportunistic (SW, 1:55-62).
4
SW, 1:63-74, 90-132, 162-74, the quotations are from 69, 96.
5
See J. Iremaschwili, Stalin und die Tragödie Georgiens. Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1930), 2123; Arsenidze, 219-23, 234-35; and Tucker, Stalin, 99, who cites two additional memoir
sources.
6
Lenin was nine years and eight months older than Stalin.
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12
7
SW, 1:244-45.
8
All of these instances will be discussed below. The paucity of citations of Lenin’s work is
confirmed by the pertinent index of citations in Stalin’s writings in Jack F. Matlock, Jr., An
Index to the Collected Works of J. V. Stalin (Washington, 1955), 189-92.
9
SW, 1:205.
10
SW, 1:229. Emphasis in the original.
11
SW, 1:232-37.
12
Tucker (Stalin, 134-35) argues that Tammerfors gave Djugashvili the chance to model his
behavior on Lenin, and that “On his return to the Caucasus, he acquired the reputation of
being a ‘second Lenin’ not only by forcefully defending Leninist positions but also by
emulating Lenin’s mode of argument and mannerisms.” The key source Tucker cites in
support of this contention is Arsenidze. Arsenidze’s evidence deserves careful attention.
He comments three times on Djugashvili’s emulation of Lenin: (1) He states that he met
him (for the second time) in the beginning of 1905 in Batum and that “In this period Soso
was a completely determined, orthodox, convinced Leninist, repeating the arguments and
ideas of his teacher with grammophonic exactitude.” Thereafter Djugashvili did not return
to Batum, but Arsenidze encountered him in other locations until he himself was arrested
in April 1906. (2) In a separate and general discussion of Djugashvili’s character without
reference to a particular period of time, Arsenidze says, “He revered Lenin. He lived by his
arguments, by his ideas, copied him peerlessly, so much so that we called him in jest,
‘Lenin’s left foot.’” (3) After mentioning Djugashvili’s role in a demonstration in Batum in
March 1902, he states that “after this period” “Stalin copied Lenin and repeated his ideas
even better, perhaps, than Shaumian.” (Arsenizde, 219-20, 222-23, 234-35, respectively.)
Though there is chronological inexactitude to Aresenidze’s recollections, the weight of his
words favors dating Stalin’s aping of Lenin’s ideas to 1902-1905 and offers no clear
support for Tucker’s claim that meeting Lenin in December 1905 intensified Stalin’s desire
to emulate him. Furthermore, though Arsenidze’s reports confirm Stalin’s mimicking
Lenin’s ideas and methods of argument—all of which he could derive just from reading
Lenin’s writings—they offer but the very slimmest support for Tucker’s claim that Stalin
also aped Lenin’s “mannerisms” (physical behavior), a claim which, if true, would indicate
that Stalin did indeed continue to emulate Lenin after actually meeting him. Tucker’s use
of Arsenizde’s evidence thus is strained on two counts, beside ignoring the change of
attitude toward Lenin plainly evident in Stalin’s writings.
13
SW, 6:56. This claim probably was disingenuous. Stalin was quite capable of making
the grand entry. His interpreter during World War II recalled such an entry on the occasion
of a dinner for the Beaverbrook-Harriman mission in September 1941, noting that “All this
was probably done on purpose. The boss was deliberately delaying his arrival, thereby
raising his guests’ expectations to a higher level” (Valentin M. Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side
[New York, 1994], 201.) Berezhkov also noted (205) that Stalin was “a great actor” who
“could play the role of an affable, modest, even a common man.”
14
P. F. Kudelli, “Na tammerforsskoi konferentsii,” Ob Il’iche. Vospominaniia pitertsev
(Leningrad, 1970), 133.
15
See also Pomper, 175.
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13
16
LCW, 5: especially 352-55, 433, 471-73.
17
SW, 1:68, 70-72, 129-32, 164, 166-70.
18
Quoted in SW, 1:174 (emphasis in Plekhanov’s words added by me).
19
Khrushchev recalled that “Stalin could never be accused of liking someone without
reason, particularly a class enemy. He was uncorruptible and irreconcilable in class
questions. It was one of his strongest qualities, and he was greatly respected for it”
(Khrushchev Remembers, 222).
20
Stalinist historiography portrayed the meeting in this vein. A painting by I. Veikhvadze
shows Lenin shaking Stalin’s hand while grasping Stalin’s right elbow with his left hand;
all of the witnesses have their eyes on Stalin. Perhaps significantly, Stalin is portrayed as
noticeably taller than Lenin. A reproduction of the painting can be found opposite p. 72 in
K. Sharikov and G. Shidlovskii, Lenin v peterburge (Leningrad, 1940), which also claims (p.
71) that at Tammerfors Stalin “worked together with Lenin as his closest comrade in arms
and one of the outstanding leaders of the party.”
21
SW, 6:56.
22
SW, 4:328.
23
SW, 6:56.
24
SW, 1:149-50, 178, 183-86, 190, 191-94, 197.
25
SW, 4:328-29. Note also Stalin’s description in 1924 of Lenin’s speeches at Tammerfors
as “remarkable” and “inspired” efforts, which occasioned “stormy enthusiasm” (SW,
6:57).
26
Ob Il’iche, 579.
27
Yaroslavsky died in 1943 at age 65. In a subsequent account, however, he did not
mention Stalin’s opposition to Lenin at Tammerfors (Landmarks, 52).
28
Kudelli, 134-35; E. Yaroslavsky, “Tri vstrechi,” Pravda, December 23, 1939. A brief
reference to Yaroslavsky is also made by Edward Ellis Smith, The Young Stalin (New York,
1967), 150. The text of the resolution is in Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (hereafter cited as RDCPSU), gen. ed. R. H. McNeal, 5 vols.
(Toronto, 1974-1982), 1:88.
29
A few weeks prior to the Conference, Lenin, having just returned to Russia from exile,
acknowledged in the Saint Petersburg Social Democratic paper Novaya Zhizn’ that “We
have ‘theorized’ for so long (sometimes—why not admit it?—to no use) in the unhealthy
atmosphere of political exile, that it will really not be amiss if we now . . . put practice a
little more in the forefront.” (LCW, 10:38-39.) Stalin almost certainly had to be familiar with
Lenin’s statement.
30
SW, 1:170.
31
This view was expressed in October 1904 (SW, 1:60).
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14
32
See McNeal, Stalin’s Works, 26-27.
33
See Tucker, Stalin, 70-74.
34
SW, 1:318. Stalin was describing an unnamed man who clearly was his father.
35
Aino Kuusinen, Before and After Stalin (London, 1974), 30.
36
Smith, Young Stalin, 153. Similarly, Nigel Moore discovers that Stalin felt “bitter
disappointment” with Lenin at Tammerfors and speculates that Stalin’s view of Lenin is to
be understood in terms of his presumed “original narcissistic fantasies and homosexual
identification with his omnipotent leader” (“The Myth of Stalin: The Psychodynamics of Its
Utopian Ideals,” Russian History/Histoire Russe 11 (Summer-Fall 1984): 283-97).
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