FUTURE PROSPECTS:
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
The close interplay of domestic and foreign factors will determine the outlook of post-Stalin Russia. Just as an aggravation of the international situation may contribute to the emergence of a military dictatorship so domestic developments, in their turn, will exercise a powerful influence on foreign policy. It may, therefore, not be out of place to consider here the alternative directions in which the Soviet regime may evolve.
There are, broadly speaking, three possible variants of development:
(a) a relapse into the Stalinist form of dictatorship;
(b) a military dictatorship;
(c) a gradual evolution of the regime towards a socialist democracy.
The conditions under which each of these variants is likely to materialize deserve to be examined. An analysis of these conditions leads to the general conclusion that the balance of domestic factors favours a democratic regeneration of the regime. A prolonged relapse into Stalinism is highly improbable. The essential prerequisite for a military dictatorship would be a war-like threat from the West. The real alternative seems to lie therefore between military dictatorship and democratic evolution.
The great bourgeois revolutions, which were in a sense the predecessors of the Russian revolution, resulted in the establishment of military dictatcrships. In Puritan England and post-Jacobin France these dictatorships came into being only a few years after the beginning of the revolution. The Soviet regime is well advanced in its fourth decade; but throughout this time it has preserved its character as a civilian, not a military, dictatorship.
Before exploring further the prospects for the future, we must briefly consider the main reason for this difference between the Russian and the other revolutions.
Every great revolution begins as a broad popular movement, whose leaders strive to establish a system of government very much more representative and broadly based than that which prevailed under the old order. Cromwell started by defending the rights of Parliament against the Crown. The French revolution represented at first all the Estates against the Court. The Russian revolution sought to establish the rule of Councils of Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Deputies in place of Tsarist autocracy and the political vacuum of the Kerensky regime.
Each revolution defeats the defenders of the old order, because it enjoys massive popular support. But the end of civil war brings about a state of weariness, frustration, and political apathy. On the one hand, the new government loses popular support; on the other, society is incapable of governing itself. The old ruling classes are destroyed or dispersed. The revolutionary classes are exhausted, divided against themselves, confused, and lacking in political energy and will. This was the state of the middle classes in the English and French revolutions; and this was also the state of the Russian working class in the early 1920's.
A disintegrated society, close to the brink of anarchy, is incapable of producing a stable and representative government, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. Since it is not in a position to govern itself, that is be governed by its elected representatives, it of necessity comes to be ruled by revolutionary ‘usurpers’.
In such a disintegrated and politically amorphous society power can be usurped and exercised only by an organization which, by its very nature or by force of tradition, has maintained a high degree of cohesion, discipline, and unity of will. In Puritan England and Thermidorian France only one such body existed: the army. The army was therefore predestined to act as trustee and guardian of post-revolutionary society. Cromwell was both the leader of the revolution and the commander of the Ironsides. In this double role he embodied both stages of the revolution: the representative —
Parliamentary stage — and the later stage of the usurpatory Protectorate. In France there was a definite break between the two phases, and each was represented by different men. Bonaparte, who had played no significant role in the first phase, embodied the second.
The Russian revolution, too, developed from government by Soviet representation into a Protectorate by usurpation. But the Bolshevik Party, not the army, in this case provided that closely knit, disciplined body of men which, inspired by a single will, was capable of ruling and unifying the disintegrated nation. No such party had existed in previous revolutions. The Jacobin Party came into being only in the course of the upheaval. It was part of the fluctuating revolutionary tide; and it broke up and vanished at the ebb of the tide. The Bolshevik Party, on the other hand, had formed a solid and centralized organization long before 1917. This enabled it to make a revolution, to win a civil war, and then, after the ebb of the tide, to play the part the army had played elsewhere, and to secure by ‘usurpation’ the stability of the post-revolutionary government. The Bolsheviks alone were able to integrate forcibly the dislocated and splintered nation. It was they who created, inspired, and — what was more important — supervised the Red Army. Thus the same civilian body of men that had stood at the head of the revolution in the proletarian-democratic period, also acted as the dictatorial guardian of society throughout the protracted phase of unrepresentative government.
The party wielded the two main instruments of power, political police and army. It built up the political police into such a formidable instrument that it has had no need to call on the army to ensure stability of government. Nevertheless, the army has always been in the background as a potential counterbalance to the political police. The party has ensured its own predominance by keeping these twin instruments of power mutually in check. Each had an inherent tendency to make itself independent; but neither army nor police could assert its independence as long as the party was able to use one of them to suppress the other's appetite for power.
The quintessence of Stalin's mechanics of government consisted in balancing his regime on these two props. But the instruments of power do not operate in a vacuum. Their importance and effectiveness depends primarily on the nation's morale. The extent to which any regime relies for its stability on the use of force is in inverse proportion to the popular support it enjoys. Popular support, or its absence, is therefore the third and the decisive element in any mechanics of power.
Malenkov's government has struck a blow at the political police. If effective, the blow must cause a shift in the whole structure of the regime. One of its two props has been weakened, perhaps shattered. On the face of it, this upsets the equilibrium of the regime and tends to increase the importance of the other prop — the army. If the party has deprived itself of the ability to oppose the political police to the army, the army may become the decisive factor in domestic affairs. After a delay of several decades the Russian revolution may yet enter its Bonapartist phase.
However, such a development is possible only if the government does not enjoy enough popular support to make it relatively independent of the material instruments of power. Only if government by persuasion fails are the tools of coercion, their respective weight and mutual relation to one another, of decisive importance. A Bonaparte can reach out for power and have his ‘18th Brumaire’ only in a country ruled by an ineffective Directory, where disorder is rampant, discontent rife, and the Directory is in frantic search of ‘a good sword’. No army can set itself up as an independent political force against a government enjoying popular confidence. In domestic policy as in war the relation of morale to physical factors is as three to one.
From these general remarks on the mechanics of power we now pass to an examination of the three variants of development possible in Russia.
Relapse into Stalinism
An attempt by the political police to regain its former position cannot be ruled out. The decree of amnesty and the exposure of the ‘doctors' plot’ have been major moves in an intense struggle which is still in progress. As these lines are written a new indication of its scope becomes apparent. The former Minister of State Security in Soviet Georgia and several high officials of the Ministry have been arrested and charged with violation of constitutional rights of citizens and extortion of confessions. The local leaders of the party have been deposed for connivance.
The arrested Georgians have obviously been allies and subordinates of the die-hards of Stalinism defeated in Moscow. But the defeated faction has its allies and subordinates in each of the sixteen Soviet Republics. Each provincial capital has had its Ignatievs and Riumins who are now being removed from office, transferred to prison, and charged not as terrorists or spies, but as men guilty of violating the constitutional rights of citizens. Thus, the transition from one regime to another is being carried out by a series of moves amounting to rather more than a mere palace revolt and less than a real revolution.
In the 1930's Trotsky advocated a ‘limited political revolution’ against Stalinism. He saw it not as a fully fledged social upheaval but as an ‘administrative operation’ directed against the chiefs of the political police and a small clique terrorizing the nation. As so often, Trotsky was tragically ahead of his time and prophetic in his vision of the future, although he could not imagine that Stalin's dosest associates would act in accordance with his scheme. What Malenkov's government is carrying out now is precisely the ‘limited revolution’ envisaged by Trotsky.
The die-hards of the security police may still try to rally and fight to save their skins. They may fight back from the provinces and they may try to regain the ground lost in Moscow. They may have influential associates and accomplices inside the Kremlin. They may try to remove Malenkov and his associates, denouncing them as apostates, secret Trotskyite-Bukharinites, and imperialist agents and presenting themselves as Stalin's only true and orthodox heirs.
Even if such a coup were successful, which is improbable, the restoration of Stalinism could be only a brief episode. The motives that caused men of Stalin's entourage to initiate a break with his era would continue to operate. Those motives spring from the present State and needs of the nation and are certainly shared by too many people to be defeated by the removal of a few personalities. Even if Malenkov were to be assassinated, others would fill his place. The political police is morally isolated. It has always been hated and feared. It is now hated more and feared less than ever. It has no chance of asserting itself against the combined strength of people, government, and party.
The diehards of the security police may, of course, join hands with the army. Signs of an ambiguous alliance between them and some military leaders were clearly visible in the incident of the Kremlin physicians in January 1953. But there have also been indications of a division among the army leaders. Not enough military support may therefore be available for a joint coup. But even if such a coup were to succeed, its result would be the establishment of a military dictatorship, not the restoration of the orthodox Stalinist regime. The prestige of the army stands high and is intact, while that of the police has been irreparably damaged. The police could be only the army's junior partner, and perhaps not even that—it might only be able to hold the stirrup for a Russian Bonaparte.
Military dictatorship
We have already mentioned the important part that some army leaders played in the political events of the last period. This emerges from the official, and now disavowed, statement about the plot of the Kremlin physicians, published on 13 January 1953. The Statement contained the following curious passage:
‘The criminal doctors tried in the first instance to undermine the health of the leading Soviet military personnel, to put them out of action and thereby to weaken the country's defences. They tried to put out of action Marshal A. M. Vassilevsky, Marshal L. A. Govorov, Marshal E. S. Koniev, General of the Army S. M. Shtemenko, Admiral G. E. Levchenko, and others. However, the arrest has upset the evil designs and the criminals have not succeeded in achieving their aim.’ (My italics — I.D.)
The communique also claimed that the doctors had brought about the premature death of Zhdanov and Shcherbakov. Only these two dead party leaders figured as victims of the conspiracy. Not a single living party leader was mentioned as a prospective victim.
This omission was not accidental. Its significance becomes clear when this indictment is compared with accusations made in previous comparable cases. In every purge trial it was alleged that the ‘terrorists’ prepared to assassinate in the first instance the party leaders: Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, and others. The accusation levelled against the Kremlin doctors created a startlingly novel pattern. Not only did it not contain so much as a hint at a conspiracy against living civilian leaders — it stressed most emphatically that the ‘conspirators’ worked primarily or, rather, exclusively against the military.
After the official disavowal of the accusation, this last circumstance appears all the more significant. What — it must be asked — were the motives of the Ministry of State Security when it singled out military leaders as the sole targets of the imaginary conspiracy?
The Ministry clearly intended to build up the prestige of the marshals and generals and to play down the importance of party leaders. The assassination motif had a definite function in all the purge trials. It had been calculated to enhance the authority of the wouldbe victims of conspiracy. Prosecutor, judges, and Press had told the nation: ‘These are our irreplaceable leaders. Their lives are most precious to our cause. Even the enemy knows this: and it is at them he aims. To their defence we ought to rally.’ In the ‘doctors' plot’ the tale of assassination was intended to point the same moral. The Ministry of State Security was out to place the marshals and the generals on a pedestal and, by implication, to disparage the party leaders.[20]
Did the heads of the security police act on their own initiative when they accorded the marshals and generals the honour of being the only prospective victims of conspiracy? Or were perhaps some of the military chiefs not averse to being hailed as the nation's heroes and indispensable leaders? The security police had no special reason to render this disinterested service to the marshals and to exclude the party chiefs, unless it acted against the latter with the complicity or on the instigation of the former. The glory of martyrdom has more than once enhanced a claim to power; and a bid for power was implicit in the original story of the ‘doctors' plot’. We need not necessarily attribute personal political ambition to any of the army leaders. They may have made an initial move towards seizure of power from the conviction that it was their duty to frustrate the reforms and the peace overtures contemplated by Malenkov. They may have acted on the belief that the new policy will weaken Russia militarily.
We have said that the tale about the ‘doctors' plot’, the cry for vigilance, and the campaign against the Jews were calculated to create an atmosphere of nationalist and war-like hysteria, which would have ruled out the possibility of any domestic reform and conciliatory foreign policy. It should perhaps be added that the extreme demonstrations of Russian nationalism have as a rule been initiated or encouraged by the army, while the party only connived at them willingly or reluctantly. It was the army that fostered the cult of Kutuzov, Suvorov, and the other traditional heroes of Russian nationalism; and the army's influence was discernible in the campaign against aliens, ‘rootless cosmopolitans’, and other ‘security risks’.
Between January and March 1953 a Russian Bonaparte cast his shadow ahead. He has been compelled to with-draw. He may now be standing in the background and watching the scene. Should Malenkov's government not be able to master the situation, should discontent be rife, should social discipline break down in consequence of the reforms, and should danger from abroad coincide with internal disorder, then the war-lord will step forward again and seize power, with or without the aid of the embittered die-hards of Stalinism.
A military dictatorship would signify neither a counterrevolution, in the Marxist sense, nor the restoration of Stalinism. Russia's military interest demands that the present economic order be conserved; and no military leader can or will do anything to change it fundamentally. His attitude towards the legacy of Bolshevism would hardly be very different from Napoleon's attitude towards the legacy of Jacobinism. He would not feel tied to any party tradition, and he would fill with his own martial splendour the vacuum left by the defunct Stalin cult. He, too, would be compelled to rationalize and modernize the system of government, but he would do so on a strictly authoritarian basis. If the internal tensions were to grow acute he would seek to relieve them by military adventure abroad. He might then out-Napoleon Napoleon and, before his own destruction, place Europe and Asia at Russia's feet.
Democratic regeneration
The prospect of a military dictatorship, while not altogether unreal, is improbable. The Russian people would have to prove extremely immature to exchange the rule of the nagan for the rule of the sword.[21] The present reaction against Stalinism indicates that the nation has outgrown authoritarian tutelage. Malenkov's reforms reflect a popular craving for freedom. To be sure, freedom may release discontent and lead to disorder and anarchy which would be a standing invitation to a new dictator. But freedom leads to such lamentable results only in nations too poor, or regimes too conservative, to satisfy the material needs of the people. In empty stomachs freedom turns sour. But Russia is no longer so poor and the regime is, after all, not so conservative. The economic progress made during the Stalin era has at last brought within the reach of the people a measure of well-being which should make possible an orderly winding-up of Stalinism and a gradual democratic evolution.
At the same time as Malenkov's government struck the blow at the security police it also decreed an overall reduction in the prices of most consumer goods. The reduction, ranging from 5 to 50 per cent, was the sixth consecutive measure of this kind carried out in the last three years. Since wages and salaries have either risen or remained stationary, the cumulative effect of the price cuts is a considerable rise in the standard of living. True enough, even the higher standard is far below the American and even below the Western European Standard. But a comparison between national standards of living is largely irrelevant to the appreciation of Russia's morale.
To people rising from the lowest depth of poverty it matters little, if at all, that they enjoy none of the elaborate facilities and luxuries available to older industrial nations, that they have no motor-cars, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines, of the existence of which they often hardly know. They are aware that they are much better fed, clad, and shod than ever before; that the State provides their children with the most extensive facilities for education; and that the planned economy guarantees security of employment. They may also hope that, if there is no war, their vigorously expanding industry will soon bring within their reach the choicer goods and utilities as well. Under such conditions popular contentment is bound to grow; and so is popular confidence in a government which at last begins to fulfil the promise of a better life.
Fortified by this mood Malenkov's government evidently trusts in its ability to depart from the Stalinist regime without provoking dangerous unrest and exposing itself to effective counter-blows from its opponents.
Besides this positive reason the new rulers have a negative and less obvious reason for self-confidence.
Authoritarian governments initiating liberal reforms have often found that such reforms endangered their very existence, and have rapidly retraced their steps. But sometimes, although much more rarely, reform carried out in time disarmed popular resentment and strengthened the existing order. When resentment is deep, strong, and politically articulate an authoritarian government cannot save itself by reformist concessions. Each concession is seen as a sign of its weakness and encourages its irreconcilable opponents. Such, for instance, was the position of Nicholas II, the last Tsar. In 1905 he initiated an ‘era of reform’, but was compelled to bring it to an abrupt close. Towards the end of Tsardom all roads led to revolution: reform strengthened the hands of the revolutionaries; suppression intensified popular resentment and prepared the eventual explosion.
In contrast to this, the reforms decreed by Alexander II in 1855-61 isolated the radical opponents of Tsardom and made revolution impossible for half a century. Social discontent had been strong enough to demand reform; but it was not widespread and articulate enough to use the government's concessions as the startingpoint for an all-out onslaught. Revolutionaries who, in the reign of Alexander II, went to the peasants to tell them that the Tsar had cheated them, were manhandled by the peasants and taken to the nearest police station.
The position of Malenkov's government is more like that of Alexander II than like that of Nicholas II. The political muteness of the nation at the end of the Stalin era is an asset to Stalin's successors. So little had the people expected a change and so little had they been capable of achieving it that they would have been exhilarated even by the most modest reforms — and Malenkov's reforms are by no means so modest. The contrast between the state of affairs of April 1953 and that of April 1952 already speaks more loudly in favour of the new rulers than they speak themselves. Anyone lifting his hand against the government would come under a cloud of populär suspicion as one who interferes with the salutary change. The people's patience and hopefulness may secure the stability of Malenkov's government and the chance of a gradual democratic regeneration of the regime.
What is to be understood by this ‘democratic regeneration’?
Its beginning consists in the abolition of the practice of government under which all authority and power of decision were vested in a single leader. This practice characterized the working of the Stalinist administration from top to bottom. The autocrat in the Kremlin had his replicas on every level in government and party. The district party secretary or the chief of a provincial administration was as little subject to control from below and as arbitrary in the exercise of power as was Stalin himself. In recent years the party repeatedly tried to put an end to this state of affairs but in vain. The officials below danced to the tune played on the first fiddle in the Kremlin. As long as autocracy was untamed and unrestricted at the very top of government, arbitrary power lower down defied all attempts to tarne it.
This has begun to change. Contrary to expectation, Malenkov has not ‘stepped into Stalin's shoes’. At the top, government by committee has taken the place of government by a single leader. The Council of Ministers and the Central Committee, not Malenkov, speak on behalf of government and party. Thus a practice which prevailed in the Leninist period is, up to a point, restored.
The change-over has been made easier by the fact that even under Stalin the Führerprinzip never became the party's precept. It was practised in defiance of the accepted theory, not in accordance with it. Despite the Stalin cult, the notions of ‘ democratic centralism’ were instilled in the mind of the party insistently enough to make it possible for Stalin's successors to break with the autocratic principle, without necessarily appearing to depart from Stalinism. It used to be said of the Inquisition that it undid itself because even while it tortured infidels and heretics in the most un-Christian manner it continued to preach the Gospel and to teach the faithful to ‘love thy neighbour’. Similarly, Stalinism has contributed to its own undoing by preaching the proletarian-democratic gospel of Leninism.
Government by committee necessitates free discussion, at least within the committee. The call for free discussion in the party often resounded during Stalin's last years, and it was addressed by the leaders of the party to the rank and file. But nobody could take the call seriously and act on it as long as there was no sign of free discussion higher up, and as long as the dreaded agents of the security police listened in. Now, at last, the call has a more genuine and convincing ring.
Yet for a nation and a party intimidated and gagged during decades nothing may be so difficult as the recovery of speech. Free discussion? But what is there to be discussed? How is a beginning to be made? Who is to start discussion and on what issue? And if repression returns, what will happen to those who opened their mouths? Uncertainty, embarrassment, and awkward silence are the first answer to appeals for free discussion.
One can gauge this mood even from the Soviet Press. The writers have been told that they need not go on mumbling the old magic formulae, and that they ought to deal more freely with events and ideas. Tired as they must be of the old formulae, they are lost without them; and they do not know what to say.
Once again the example must be set by the new rulers. They themselves must begin to discuss affairs of State publicly. But they are naturally afraid of doing so. If they begin to air their differences at this early stage, they will give the impression of disunity and weakness. They prefer to settle their inevitable disagreements within their own narrow circle, and to demonstrate to the country and the world that they are inspired by a single will. Nor does their ambiguous attitude towards Stalinist orthodoxy allow them frankly to explain the direction of their policy, or even to see it clearly for themselves.
But sooner or later they must set the example. Either their own differences will become wide and acute enough to compel some of them to appeal for support to public opinion, or eise the rank and file, constantly exhorted to use their democratic rights, will begin to speak after an interval of perplexity and silence; and the discussion down below may become chaotic and anarchic, unless guidance is offered from above.
The process by which the nation may relearn to form and express its opinions may at first be slow and difficult. It can start only from inside the Communist Party. The regime will, either from self-preservation or from inertia, continue as a single party system for years to come. This need not be an important obstacle to democratic evolution as long as party members are permitted to speak their minds on all matters of policy. All politically minded and active elements of the nation are, anyhow, in the ranks of the Communist Party, if only because there has been no other party to turn to. And within the Communist Party there already exist various potential trends which will become actual and will crystallize in the processes of inner party discussion. Diverse shades of internationalism and nationalism will come to life. Divergent attitudes towards the peasantry will be expressed. Conflicting views will arise about the tempo of further industrialization, consumer interests, educational issues, and a host of other vital problems.
Once the ruling party begins to discuss its affairs it cannot monopolize freedom of discussion for long. It cannot forbid members of other organizations — trade unions, collective farms, cooperatives, Soviets, and educational associations — to do what its own members are allowed and encouraged to do.
The coming epoch may thus bring with it a breath-taking reversal of the process by which the Soviet democracy of the early days of the revolution was transformed into an autocracy.
The Leninist regime did not begin as a single party system. On the contrary, its first promise, made in good faith, was that it would treat with tolerance all parties which did not oppose the revolution arms in hand — for all those parties there was to be room within the new Soviet democracy. Fighting for the life of the revolution and for its own life, Lenin's government broke that promise. It destroyed Soviet democracy and banned all parties; but it still preserved democracy within Bolshevik ranks. Yet it could not allow the Bolsheviks the freedom which it had denied to others. Lenin proceeded to restrict inner party democracy, and Stalin abolished it.
The reverse process can begin only with the infusion of democracy in the Communist Party. Only from there can freedom of expression spread to other bodies, covering an ever wider range, until a fully fledged Soviet democracy comes into being, backed by a high industrial civilization and by an up-to-date socialist system.
Historically, the Communist Party has lost its own freedom because it denied it to others. When at last it regains freedom it cannot but return it to others.
This great goal still looms only dimly on a distant horizon. To come nearer to it, Russia needs peace, peace, and once again peace. However half-hearted the intentions of the Malenkov government may have been and whatever its ultimate fate, it already has the historic distinction that it has taken the first steps which should lead towards democratic regeneration.
For decades freedom was banned from Russia because it was, or was supposed to be, the enemy of socialism. If Russia had been free to choose her own road she would hardly have marched in the direction in which Bolshevism has led her. But freedom may once again become the ally and friend of socialism; and then the forty years of wandering in the desert may be over for the Russian revolution.