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The Bolshevik Past as the First Secretary Likes It
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
Extract
The leaders of all modern states have appreciated to some extent the role played by historical studies in determining a citizenry's world outlook. The keenest sense of awareness has been exhibited by the authoritarian rulers, the self-chosen “men of destiny” who have felt compelled to fulfill—and to generate enthusiasm for—a “historic mission” whose execution would benefit a select people or mankind in general. Thus did the archracist among this century's European despots reflect on April II, 1942, with regard to his new subjects in the east: “To teach the Russians, Ukrainians and Kirghiz to read and write will eventually be to our own disadvantage; education will give the more intelligent among them an opportunity to study history, to acquire an historical sense and hence to develop political ideas which cannot but be harmful to our interests.”
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References
1 Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941–1944, trans. by N. Cameron and R. H. Stevens, New York, 1953, p. 344.
2 There are several well known monographs on historiography in Party dress. For some indication of its employment among those who “count” in Soviet society, see the pioneering work of Z. Katz, “Party Political Education in Russia, 1918–1935,” Soviet Studies (Glasgow), VII, No. 3 (January 1956), pp. 237–47.
3 Decision of the CC CPSU(B) of August 2, 1946, “Training and Retraining of Leading Party and Soviet Workers,” in Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza v Rezoliutsiiakh i Resheniiakh S'ezdov, Konferentsii i Plenumov TsK, 1898–1911 [The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Resolutions and Decisions of the Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee, 1898–1953], Moscow, 1953, II, pp. 1019–27.
4 Komsomolskaia Pravda, September 14, 1946.
5 Kommunist (Moscow), No. 13 (1958), p. 120.
6 The textbooks are Istoriia Vsesoiuznoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (bolshevikov), Kratkii Kurs [History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course], edited by a Commission of the CC CPSU(B) and approved by the CC CPSU(B) in 1938, Moscow, 1945; and B. N. Ponomarev, editor-in-chief, Volkov, I. M., Volin, M. S., Zaitsev, V. S., Kuchkin, A. P., Mints, I. I., Slepov, L. A., Sobolev, A. I., Timofeevsky, A. A., Khvostov, V. M., and Shatagin, N. I., Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza [History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union], Moscow, 1959Google Scholar. B. N. Ponomarev is reported to have been the director of the CC CPSU Secretariat's Department for Liaison with Non-Bloc Communist Parties as of December 1, 1959 (National Policy Machinery in the Soviet Union, Washington, D.C., 1960, p. 25).
7 Decision of the CC CPSU(B) of November 14, 1938, “Organization of Party Propaganda in Connection with Publication of History of the CPSU(B), Short Course,” KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh, op.cit., 11, pp. 859–75.
8 Kratkii Kurs, p. 4.
9 See Leonhard, W., “Party Training after Stalin,” Survey: An Analysis of Cultural Trends in the Soviet Orbit (London), No. 20 (October 1957), pp. 10–16.Google Scholar
10 Ibid. Manifesto excerpts are given in New York Times, July 27, 1953. On the dating of Bolshevik origins, more below.
11 Leonhard, , op.cit., p. 11.Google Scholar
12 Khrushchev speech in Pravda, February 15, 1956.
13 Ibid. February 18, 1956. At the same time, historians had to “go in step with the Party,” proceeding from “positions of Leninism.”
14 The Anti-Stalin Campaign and International Communism: A Selection of Documents, New York, 1956, pp. 73, 88.
15 “History Is a Great Teacher” (interview with Mints, Kuchkin, and Zaitsev), Literaturnaia Gazeta, July 9, 1959.
16 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 177; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 202.
17 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 177; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 203.
18 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 199; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 236.
19 Istoriia KPSS, p. 234.
20 Ibid., p. 342.
21 Ibid., p. 317. A serialized version of Chapter IX that appeared in a journal approved for publication on November 12, 1958, also mentioned “collective leadership.” Significantly, this term was excised from the final draft of the textbook; cf. V Pomoshch Politicheskomu Samoobrazovaniiu [Aid to political self-education], No. 11 (1958), p. 99.
22 Cf. Popov, N. N., Ocherk Istorii Rossiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (bolshevikov) [An Outline of the History of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)], Moscow-Leningrad, 1926, pp. 205, 226–28.Google Scholar
23 Popov offers a complete list of members and alternates in the post-revolutionary CC's. The Short Course names only those who consistently deviated in accordance with the Party line, first under Lenin and then under Stalin. Thereupon the list closes abruptly with the phrase “and others.” This procedure is followed in the annotation to the documentary collection of 1953, KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh. The 1959 text does not even give this partial listing, perhaps to avert doubt about the Lenin-Khrushchev tie to be discussed below.
24 See Kratkii Kurs, p. 202.
25 Istorila KPSS, pp. 259ff.
26 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 208; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 262.
27 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 265; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 373.
28 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 190; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 222.
29 “The organization and formation of the Red Army were the concern of an All-Russian collegium led by N. V. Krylenko and N. I. Podvoisky. The entire process of creating the armed forces of the Soviet Republic was guided by the Party led by V. I. Lenin” (Istoriia KPSS, p. 249).
30 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, pp. 224, 226, 227–28, 230–31; and Istoriia KPSS, pp. 293, 294, 298, 300. Tukhachevsky, Trotsky's commander in the field, is absolved of the guilt of issuing a “wrecker's order” during the Polish campaign in 1920. Although rehabilitated posthumously by 1958, he is not ranked with the military heroes of the Civil War.
31 Istoriia KPSS, p. 324.
32 Ibid., p. 357.
33 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 276; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 384.
34 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 384–85.
35 Ibid., pp. 383, 384, 397.
36 Ibid., p. 428. The words “merciless rebuff” are not italicized in the primary source as reproduced in KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh, 11, p. 565.
37 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 282; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 405.
38 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, pp. 254–55; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 358.
39 See Kratkii Kurs, p. 265.
40 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, pp. 176, 185, 190, 197, 227–28, 256–57, 303–5; and Istoriia KPSS, pp. 199, 201, 217, 220, 234, 301, 359, 362–63.
41 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, pp. 182, 255; and Istoriia KPSS, pp. 210, 359.
42 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 201, 231, 288, 362–63, 373.
43 Ibid., p. 363.
44 Ibid., p. 483.
45 Ibid., pp. 483–84.
48 Khrushchev's “secret speech” refers to “untold harm to our Party” and “tremendous harm to our country” (cf. ibid., p. 484; and The Anti-Stalin Campaign and International Communism, pp. 10, 38).
47 Istoriia KPSS, p. 497.
48 Cf. ibid., p. 484; and The Anti-Stalin Campaign and International Communism, pp. 293ff.
49 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 204; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 253.
50 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 253, 262, 271–72, 341.
51 Ibid., p. 268.
52 Ibid., p. 269.
53 Ibid., p. 282.
54 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, pp. 202–3; and Istoriia KPSS, pp. 238–39.
55 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 184; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 212.
56 Istoriia KPSS, p. 224.
57 Ibid., p. 276.
58 Ibid., p. 227.
59 Ibid., p. 251. Sultan-Galiev, the Tatar national Communist, who was first arrested in 1923 and disappeared in the Ezhovshchina, is not amnestied. Nor is A. Ikramov, the Uzbek Party leader who figured in the major trial of Rightists in 1938 and was restored to grace in an announcement made locally in 1957. The authors intone that “The 8th [Party] Congress categorically opposed the creation of a federation of autonomous Communist parties and steadfastly held that it was essential to have a single, centralized Communist Party with a single Central Committee to lead all Party work. … The creation of Communist parties of the Soviet national republics as component and inseparable parts of the RCP(B) signified a new stage in the organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet land on the basis of the Leninist precept of proletarian internationalism and was a model of Party organization in a multi-national socialist republic” (ibid., p. 295).
60 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 221; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 284.
61 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 346–47.
62 Ibid., p. 276.
63 Ibid., p. 311.
64 Ibid., p. 308.
65 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, pp. 228–29, 230; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 307.
66 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 280, 376–77, 452, 453. Chapter XI as serialized in a journal approved for publication on March 16, 1959, asserts that the Chinese Communist Party led the anti-warlord crusade of the 1920's. The textbook version, ready for print three months later, differs on this point, affirming that the CCP tried to lead the struggle (cf. V Pomoshch Politicheskomu Samoobrazovaniiu, No. 3 [1959], p. 29; and Istoriia KPSS, pp. 376–77).
67 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 289; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 450.
68 Istoriia KPSS, p. 453.
69 Ibid., p. 225.
70 Ibid., p. 236.
71 Ibid., p. 237.
72 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 209; and Istoriia KPSS, pp. 261–62.
73 Istoriia KPSS, p. 317.
74 Cf. Kratkii Kurs., p. 206; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 256.
75 Istoriia KPSS, p. 196.
76 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 192; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 224.
77 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 226–27.
78 Ibid., p. 275.
79 Cf. Kratkii Kurs, p. 288; and Istoriia KPSS, p. 415.
80 Istoriia KPSS, p. 314. An official review makes it clear that Khrushchev belongs in the first category (V Pomoshch Politicheskomu Samoobrazovaniiu, No. 7 [1959], p. 18). The citation also includes CC Presidium members Voroshilov, Mikoyan, and Shvernik. The honoring of Voroshilov is a sign of magnanimity, as well as of “authenticity,” in view of the failure on p. 655 to mention him among the nineteen dignitaries (besides Khrushchev) who in June 1957 “decisively spoke out against the anti-Party grouping.”
81 Istoriia KPSS, pp. 324–26.
82 Ibid., p. 266. See D. Scott, “Decentralization and Social Change,” Soviet Survey: A Quarterly Review of Cultural Trends (London), No. 29 (July-September 1959), pp. 61–66.
83 Istoriia KPSS, p. 331.
84 Ibid., p. 248. The serialized version of Chapter VIII in a journal approved for publication on November 12, 1958, refers to Lenin as a “new proletarian type of State figure” (V Pomoshch Politicheskomu Samoobrazovaniiu, No. 11 [1958], p. 51). The excised adjective may have been thought to detract from the Lenin majesty.
85 Lenin, V. I., Selected Works, 2 vols., Moscow, 1947, 11, p. 261.Google Scholar
86 Pace William O. Douglas and John Gunther. “Under Stalin, Russia worked clandestinely in foreign lands. Under the new regime she is no longer an outsider conspiring with an internal underground” (Douglas, Russian Journey, Garden City, N.Y., 1956, p. 233). “World revolution incited by Moscow is no longer an element in policy because it is no longer considered to be necessary. Moreover the whole stress of Soviet policy since the middle 1940's has been toward national development” (Gunther, , Inside Russia Today, New York, 1958, p. 488Google Scholar; italics in original).
87 See Weidlé, W., Russia: Absent and Present, trans. by Smith, A. G., New York, 1952, pp. 122ff.Google Scholar
88 The same can be inferred with regard to the CC Presidium from angry word that the opposition of the mid-1920's tried to convert its forerunner, the Politburo, into a “discussion club” (see Voprosy Istorii KPSS [Problems of the History of the CPSU], No. 6 [1959], p. 29).
89 An involved reply to the charge that the 21st Party Congress, “having discussed economic plans for the country's development, paid little attention to political problems, the problems of developing state, socialist democracy,” is in V Pomoshch Politicheskomu Samoobrazovaniiu, No. 10 (1959), pp. 33–43.