The great man is the man who, foreseeing the course that things are taking, gets ahead of them instead of following them, and acts for or against them in advance.—H. BARBUSSE
As I write these words, Joseph Vissarion Djugashvili, known to the world as Marshal Stalin, is in his sixty-fifth year. His moustache and his thick mass of once black hair, brushed back from his forehead, have turned grey. His strong, swarthy face has lines which mark the passing of the years. His shoulders droop a little, but in his Marshal’s uniform he walks as one knowing his destination and intent on getting there. His dark brown eyes still look straight at you, perpetually threatening to smile; and when they do, you feel you have met the completely integrated individual serenely making the most of all that life has to give. Here is the man who in his younger days went calmly through the prisons of Czarism and slept while others excitedly exhausted themselves with anxieties he had dismissed. Here is the former “unknown” revolutionary compelling mankind to re-value its hasty judgements of him and of the events with which he has been associated, often primarily responsible.
On September 7th, 1942, after his first visit to Moscow, Mr. Churchill reported to the British House of Commons:
It was an experience of great interest to me to meet Premier Stalin. . . . It is very fortunate for Russia in her agony to have this great rugged chief at her head. He is a man of outstanding personality, suited to the sombre and stormy times in which his life has been cast. He is a man of inexhaustible courage and will-power, a man direct and even blunt in speech. . . . Above all, he is a man with that saving sense of humour which is of high importance to all men and to all nations. Premier Stalin also left upon me an impression of deep cool wisdom and a complete absence of illusions of any kind. . .
This is the judgement of a friend who was once an enemy.
Mr. Wendell Willkie, another war-time visitor to the Soviet Union, recalls in his account of his meeting with Stalin an incident, the characteristicness of which is, perhaps, fully appreciable only to those who have known and worked with him and seen him in his everyday life. Mr. Willkie writes:
As I was leaving him after my first talk, I expressed appreciation of the time he had given me, the honour he conferred upon me in talking so candidly. A little embarrassed, he said: “Mr. Willkie, you know I grew up a Georgian peasant. I am unschooled in pretty talk. All I can say is, I like you very much.”
Mr. Joseph Davies, formerly American ambassador to the Soviet Union, telling his daughter of his meeting with Stalin, says:
He gives the impression of a strong mind which is composed and wise. His brown eye is exceedingly kind and gentle. A child would like to sit on his knee and a dog would sidle up to him. . . . He has a sly humour. He has a very great mentality. It is sharp, shrewd and above all things else, wise, at least so it would appear to me. If you can picture a personality that is exactly opposite to what the most rabid anti-Stalinist anywhere could conceive, then you might picture this man. . . .
Such are the testimonies of men who are fundamentally opposed to Stalin’s political theories and philosophy of life. To quote from his friends would be superfluous, for our vocabularies are too limited to translate the admiration, and I would add, the love of Russia’s millions for “the man at the helm.”
Nearly fifty years have passed since this son of a peasant mother and cobbler father joined Lenin’s party and plunged into the underground world of preparation for the overthrow of Czarism and inauguration of the world revolution. Neither prison nor beatings, nor Siberian exile proved able to turn him from his chosen course or dim his vision of the world when man should no longer exploit his fellow-man. Early in life he had learned that “the only goal worthy of humanity is the greatest possible enlargement of all human capacities,” and had become convinced that humanity could not fully develop its capacities as long as human relations were trammelled by the fetters of private property. From Marx and Lenin he learned to view the struggle with the detachment of the scientist, to measure the forces engaged with the skill of the scientifically equipped warrior, and to fight with the cool passion of the fanatic.
He was forty years of age when for the first time in his life since he had left the poverty-stricken home of his boyhood, he secured rooms in the Kremlin and established a place he could at last call his home. There was nothing lavish about this home then, nor is there to-day, nor ever has been except the warm comradeship of his married life with Nadya Alleluiev, the daughter of his old Georgian workman friend. Of this marriage there were two children, a son, now an officer in the Red Army, and a daughter, now approaching womanhood. The son of his first wife is a prisoner of the Nazis. Nadya, to whom he was devoted, died in 1929. Few were the hours of any day of those terrific years that he could spend with her. The period of famine, civil war, and planning the great social advance, demanded of the leader of the Russian Revolution unrelenting, tireless activity.
Although, through this period, he lived in a blaze of light in which the people of the Soviet Union could see him clearly, he was still to the outside world, relying on the distorted reports of those who sympathised neither with his aims nor his methods, a mysterious, sombre figure of whom they knew not what to make. To-day, as we trace his course in retrospect, his aims and his path stand out clearly. Convinced that the proletariat must secure political power and become the leading class in society in order to transform it into the classless society of Socialism and Communism, he joined the party of Lenin dedicated to this task. Lenin’s party purposed to make allies of other oppressed classes, especially the peasantry, and to conquer Czarism and the landlord, and capitalist classes.
By accomplishing these ends Lenin and Stalin led the way to government in the interests of the working people. The next stage stands out as plainly as the first: to destroy the influence, and finally the organisation, of every political group which stood in the way of the transformation of Russia into a Socialist country; and to reorganise the national economy on Socialist lines, at the same time industrialising the U.S.S.R., collectivising its agriculture, and thus laying the economic foundations of the classless society. In the process the colonial peoples of Czardom would be liberated and set on the march to full nationhood and fraternal unity within the Union.
The methods whereby Lenin, and later Stalin, accomplished these aims likewise stand out as unequivocally as the goal to which they aspired. They were governed by definite principles. Scientifically analysing the structure of society founded on private ownership of the means of production, they concluded that it is characterised by a condition of class warfare, is governed by the interests of the paramount economic classes, and must ever remain so until the means of production are socialised. Nevertheless, they rejected the theory that society develops everywhere under the same conditions and at the same tempo. They were convinced that while the class conflict was universal, it was also variable, and the working-class of each country or group of countries must conquer power separately in its own time and fashion and under its own leaders. They were also convinced that the conditions of the Russian Empire were such that the Russian working-class would be the first to succeed. Having conquered, the Russian workers would have to face the universal disapproval and hatred of the capitalist States and defend the Socialist State to the uttermost.
And so it all proved in the event. Lenin died before all but the first part of the task had been accomplished. Stalin was in command in the period of economic and social transformation. To-day he stands at the apex of a transformed society. He is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Premier of the Soviet Union, leading Marshal of the greatest army the world has seen. He guides a State harmoniously built of many nations, the world’s leading military Power, second only to the United States of America in industrial potential and within measurable distance of surpassing it. No leader of our time can look back with greater satisfaction on the course he has travelled, look forward with greater confidence to the future. Stalin has tested his philosophy and principles in the fire of experience, and seen his dreams come true. His critics may like neither his philosophy nor his principles nor his dreams. Their likes and dislikes are immaterial. What matters is the existence of the Soviet Union, a multi-national State, in which all nations are free self-governing working peoples building a Socialist civilisation and defending it with unsurpassed enthusiasm and will to victory. There are no economic classes to practise exploitation, no racial and national enmity. Men and women have equal political, economic, and social rights, and the Constitution which unites the peoples in common association represents the nearest approach yet made by society anywhere to the fulfilment of Lincoln’s famous “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” And these things have been achieved under Stalin’s leadership.
Were they all, his record would still remain unsurpassed. But they are not all. It must be recognised that he has transformed the primitive struggle of man against man for the basic means of livelihood into a mighty war of science versus ignorance, superstition, and all unsocial conduct. Patriotism, once the distorted mirror of the propertied classes, has been transformed into the expression of love for the country or Socialism. Nationalism has been stripped of its stupid narrowness and become a cultural variation for the enrichment of life. Rank, once the outward manifestation of class, wealth and power, has become the symbol of service and honour, the mark of ability and responsibility in the common service of society. Science, freed from the fetters of private property considerations, plans the country’s economic life, serves industry, agriculture, and—not least—health, on an unparalleled scale, and is at the general service of every man, woman, and child.
It may then be asked, does all this mean that Stalin also has been transformed from a pioneer of World Revolution into a great national statesman? Has he ceased to regard the Russian Revolution as the prologue to World Revolution? If these questions were put to him personally he could reply, “Not at all. The Russian Revolution did begin the World Revolution. The latter is still proceeding and the Soviet is still leading it. You must not confuse World Revolution with the task of leading the working-class in each country to the conquest of political power within that country. Such conquest of power is a national, not an international task, and each people must do it in its own time and way. I think the way will usually be the same as that which we took in November, 1917, but this particular task in the World Revolution is not ours. It is true that at one time I did think, with Lenin, that the whole process of World Revolution could be led by a centralised international Communist party—the Communist International. Experience, however, has proved that this is not possible. Hence the dissolution of the Communist International and the decision that each Communist Party must pursue its own aims and tasks independently, guided by the teachings of Marx and Lenin and the experiences of the Comintern.
“Nevertheless, this does not mean that the Soviet Union will do, or is doing, nothing to aid the World Revolution. It could not adopt such a negative policy even if it so desired. It could not live in a vacuum sealed off from the rest of the world. To-day it is a world Power. It is also a Socialist Power. Its triumphs are known to all, and its liberating influence in the minds of the millions throughout the nations cannot be measured.
“The Soviet State must perforce enter into relations with the outside world, although this world is still capitalist. What then shall govern our political relations with the capitalist States? The Soviet State is not an imperialist Power seeking territorial conquests. Therefore our policy is one of peaceful, friendly, and commercial relations with all, which will aid us to rehabilitate that part of the Soviet Union devastated by war and will speed up the economic and social development of our country.
“Shall we attempt to force our social system on another country? No, we shall recognise whatever government has authority so long as it is peacefully inclined towards the Soviet Union. Naturally, should other States become Socialist States the degree of aid we can render each other becomes greater, especially when such countries are geographically near to us. We assisted Spanish democracy, which had not yet become Socialist. We assisted China in her struggle against Japanese imperialism, although China is not yet a Socialist country. We shall support all democratic developments which give scope for the working people to increase their power and fulfil their rightful mission.
“At present our principal, our paramount task is to unite with every anti-Nazi force for the destruction of Nazism. When it has been destroyed and we have liberated the people of Germany and the nations held in Hitler’s bondage, it must be obvious that the restoration of the states destroyed by Nazism will be the first problem to be solved. A proletarian Socialist revolution is not likely to precede the national and democratic revolution which Nazism will have engendered. Moreover, the working-class of Germany and other countries will need a “breathing space” in which to reorganise their forces, while time will also be needed for the redevelopment of their revolutionary leadership.
“The World Revolution is not our creation. We only showed how to lead it and make a success of it in the interests of the great majority of humanity. We shall continue to do our duty.”
Here we leave Joseph Stalin working in the Kremlin, the great human power-house of the changing world. No statesman of any country has emerged from this war with such gigantic achievements and such assured prospects to set before his people. When Nazism has been shattered there will be no European country in a position to challenge or endanger the U.S.S.R.; and in the Orient the destruction of Japanese imperialism will leave her eastern boundaries as unthreatened as her western. It will not be for Stalin to warn his people that great economic and political crises lie ahead in which everybody will have to work harder and be poorer. He can confidently face his people with frontiers secure and an era of economic and social expansion ahead such as the world has never known. The full power of the country’s vast productive machinery and resources will be turned to healing the wounds of war and enriching the social well-being of every man, woman, and child in the Union.
Thus the new world, born on November 7th, 1917, will grow from strength to strength, and all men will testify that in its creation and development Joseph Stalin has earned his title of “the Great.” But he himself will continue to prefer being known as a “disciple of Lenin.”