Simon Montefiore - Stalin

There was much scribbling across the table at these meetings. Bukharin, before he lost his place, drew caricatures of all the leaders, often in ludicrous poses with rampant erections or in Tsarist uniforms. They were always teasing Voroshilov about his vanity and stupidity even though this hero of the Civil War was one of Stalin’s closest allies. “Hi friend!” Stalin addressed him fondly. “Pity you’re not in Moscow. When are you coming?”

“Vain as a woman,” no one liked uniforms more than Voroshilov. This proletarian boulevardier who sported white flannels at his sumptuous dacha and full whites for tennis, was a jolly Epicurean, “amiable and fun-loving, fond of music, parties and literature,” enjoying the company of actors and writers. Stalin heard that he was wearing his wife’s scarf because of a midsummer cold: “Of course, he loves himself so much that he takes great care of himself. Ha! He even does exercises!” laughed Stalin. “Notoriously stupid,” Voroshilov rarely saw a stick without getting the wrong end of it.

A locksmith from Lugansk (renamed Voroshilov), he had, like many of Stalin’s leaders, barely completed two years at school. A Party member since 1903, Klim had shared a room with Stalin in Stockholm in 1906 but they had become friends at Tsaritsyn. Henceforth Stalin backed this “Commander-in-Chief from the lathe” all the way to become Defence Commissar in 1925. Out of his depth, Voroshilov loathed more sophisticated military minds with the inferiority complex that was one of the moving passions of Stalin’s circle. Ever since he had delivered mail on horseback to the miners of Lugansk, his mind was more at home with the equine than the mechanized.

Usually described as a snivelling coward before his master, he had flirted with the oppositions and was perfectly capable of losing his temper with Stalin whom he always treated like an old buddy. He was only slightly younger than Koba and continued to call a spade a spade even after the Terror. Fair-haired, pink-cheeked, warm eyes twinkling, he was sweet-natured: the courage of this beau sabreur was peerless. Yet beneath his cherubic affability, there was something mean about the lips that revealed a petulant temper, vindictive cruelty, and a taste for violent solutions. [22] “You know Marapultsa,” Voroshilov wrote to Stalin in October 1930. “He was condemned for five years… I think you agree with me that he was condemned rightly.” On another occasion, Voroshilov appealed to Stalin for a “semi-lunatic” he had known since 1911 who was in jail. “What do I want you to do? Almost nothing… but for you to consider for one minute the destruction of Minin and decide what to do with him…” Once convinced, he was “narrow-minded politically,” pursuing his orders with rigid obedience.

His cult was second only to Stalin’s: even in the West, the novelist Denis Wheatley published a panegyric entitled The Red Eagle—“the amazing story of the pitboy who beat professional soldiers of three nations and is now Warlord of Russia.” 21

In one note passed round the table, Voroshilov wrote: “I cannot make the speech to the brake-makers because of my headache.”

“To let off Voroshilov, I propose Rudzutak,” replied Stalin, suggesting another Politburo member.

But Voroshilov was not escaping so easily: Rudzutak refused so Kalinin suggested letting him off, providing Voroshilov did the speech after all.

“Against!” voted Voroshilov, signing himself: “Voroshilov who has the headache and cannot speak!” 22

If Stalin approved of a leader’s speech, he sent an enthusiastically scatological note: “A world leader, FUCK HIS MOTHER! I’ve read your report—you criticized everyone—fuck their mother!” he wrote approvingly to Voroshilov 23who wanted more praise: “Tell me more clearly—did I fail 100% or only 75%?” Stalin retorted in his inimitable style: “it was a good… report. You smacked the arses of Hoover, Chamberlain and Bukharin. Stalin.” 24

Serious questions were decided too: during a budget discussion, Stalin verbally nudged Voroshilov to stand up for his department: “They’re robbing you but you’re silent.” When his colleagues went back to discuss something Stalin thought had already been decided, they received this across the table: “What does this mean? Yesterday we agreed one thing about the speech but today another. Disorganization! Stalin.” Appointments were made in this way too. Their tone was often playful: Voroshilov wanted to inspect the army in Central Asia: “Koba, can I go… ? They say they’re forgotten.”

“England will whine that Voroshilov has come to attack India,” replied Stalin, who wanted to avoid all foreign entanglements while he industrialized Russia.

“I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,” Voroshilov persisted.

“That’s worse. They’ll find out and say Voroshilov came secretly with criminal intent,” scrawled Stalin. When it came to appointing Mikoyan to run Trade, Voroshilov asked, “Koba, should we give Fishing to Mikoyan? Would he do it?” 25The members often bargained for appointments. Hence Voroshilov proposed to Kuibyshev, “I was first to propose the candidature of Pyatakov in conversation with Molotov and Kaganovich, and I’ll support you as your second…” 26

The Politburo could sit for hours, exhausting even Stalin: “Listen,” he wrote to Voroshilov during one session, “let’s put it off until Wednesday evening. Today’s no good. Already it’s 4:30 and we’ve still got 3 big questions to get through… Stalin.” Sometimes Stalin wrote wearily: “Military matters are so serious they must be discussed seriously but my head’s not capable of serious work today.” 27

However, Stalin realized that the Politburo could easily unite to dismiss him. Rykov, the Rightist Premier, did not believe in his plans, and now Kalinin too was wavering. Stalin knew he could be outvoted, even overthrown. [23] They frequently disagreed with him, certainly on small matters such as a discussion about the Kremlin military school: “Seems that after the objections of Comrade Kalinin and others (I know other Politburo members object too), we can forgive them because it’s not an important question,” Stalin wrote to Voroshilov. Having defeated Bukharin in 1929, Stalin wanted to appoint him Education Commissar but as Voroshilov told Sergo in a letter, “Because we were a united majority, we pushed it through (against Koba).” 28The new archives reveal how openly Kalinin argued with Stalin.

“You defend the kulaks?” scribbled Stalin. He pushed it across the table to Papa Kalinin, that mild-mannered former peasant with round spectacles, goatee beard and droopy moustache.

“Not the kulaks,” Kalinin wrote back, “but the trading peasant.”

“But did you forget about the poorest ones?” Stalin scrawled back. “Did you ignore the Russian peasantry?”

“The middling sort are very Russian but what about non-Russians? They’re the poorest,” argued Kalinin.

“Now you’re the Bashkir President not the Russian one!” Stalin chided him.

“That’s not an argument, that’s a curse!” 29Stalin’s curse did descend on those who opposed him during this greatest crisis. He never forgot Kalinin’s betrayal. Every criticism was a battle for survival, a question of sin versus goodness, disease versus health, for this thin-skinned, neurotic egotist on his Messianic mission. During these months, he brooded on the disloyalty of those around him, for his family and his political allies were utterly interwoven. Stalin had every reason to feel paranoid. Indeed the Bolsheviks believed that paranoia, which they called “vigilance,” was an almost religious duty. [24] Doing nothing and lacking “vigilance” was an equally sacred sin in Stalin’s eyes: he called it “thoughtlessness.” Later Stalin was to talk privately about the “holy fear” that kept even him on his toes.